Tractorboy in the Land of Tao
Letters: 1946-47
by
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The morning of the ninth our party of thirteen embarked in a sampan to cross the neck of the lake where it drains into the Yangtze—our number was increased to thirteen by five police guards who were supposed to provide protection for us against any "bandits"...The old mat confessed that he was putting his savings into silver because of the low value and the instability of the currency, and he advised us to do the same if we wanted to survive hard times. Thanking him for the advice, we headed back to the rest of the group.
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About the Book
Tractorboy is about one year in the life of an idealistic, middle-class, church-based, country boy in his late teens who, due primarily to the paucity of volunteers willing to work for virtually nothing and his church connections, lucked into working for the United Nations as a civilian employee in post World War II China before the Communists had taken over the country. The story is told mainly through the letters he wrote home to his parents and immediate family about his adventures, mis- and otherwise, along with occasional contemporary comments and information supplied from memory to fill in some of the blanks. Within a few weeks after his sojourn began, out of nothing more than laziness, he gave up writing a parallel journal and let the letters serve that function.
About the Author
The author has very few, if any, credentials as an author. However, as an observer of the human condition, he can lay claim to credentials that may be questioned in quality but certainly not in quantity. He has traveled half-way around the world twice, driven at least half a million miles in the American West, attended 3 institutions of higher learning and a trade school, taught English and History at the secondary level for 19 years, carpentered for 10, assembled computer peripherals for 2, inspected residences for insurance underwriting purposes for 10; and for the last 7 years he has been resting and putting this book together. He peaked early and has spent the rest of his life wondering why nothing interesting enough to write about has ever happened to him.