With Long Life / Wheeler, Penny Estes / (PB/1978-1978/B+/USED)

*Condition Note: Book is lightly used and clean with some freckling on the page edges.*

"When I was your age . . ." or "Back in the good old days . . ." How often have you groaned over such admonition? And little wonder. We live now--a present that Alvin Toffler reminds us "has been caught up in the fire storm of change." Toffler even diagnoses our condition as a disease--"future shock"--and as it mounts toward an epidemic, you and I--members of the present generation--are surprised to find ourselves riding the crest of the nostalgia wave too. We write with Big Red pens, coiffure our hair as in the thirties, collect old radio shows, wear fashions with loosely draped fabrics and lengths reminiscent of Grandma's girlhood.

But in the good old days--what were they really like?
* Crossing streets were ten times more fatal prior to automobiles
* In 1880 New York City had ten saloons for each church and twenty for every school
* Only 2 percent of New York City homes had water hookups in 1882
* Railroad accidents in 1890 killed 10,000 and maimed 80,000
* By 1900 the child-labor force exceeded one and three quarter million

Of course good times as well as hard times characterized the good old days, and in With Long Life Lisey relives both kinds of experiences from those memorable years through the stories her grandmother shared--stories steeped in nostalgia and reality.

Why did Annie have to die? Could the gang of ruffians that Christmas Eve be trusted as they swooped down on crippled Tucker Webb? How does a young mother prepare to die and leave three children alone on the desolate prairie? Would the eerie events end once Mrs. Albertson's relatives terminated their visit? Why was the burly town loiterer so curious about Hugh Smith's colporteur work?

If the gripping nostalgia in With Long Life does not have therapeutic value against burgeoning future shock, at least it's a refreshing, timely book--a sort of buffer zone for our frenetic age.

Table of Contents

"With Long Life"
Tucker Webb's Christmas
A Quilt of Comfort
The Silent Customer
The Recluse
Thunderstorm
The Lounger
The Secret
Wild Horse
Gift of Love
Weekend of Terror
Right Angles and a Prayer
The Ungrateful Cow
Stalled

Used Book Information

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