With one boy white and the other black in segregated Mississippi, backwoods and riverbottom adventures are too exciting to allow these motherless seven-year olds to consider the normal bigotry of the times. Childhood is grounded in mischief around Oxford's Bailey Woods and in the rural community of Taylor, as the boys grow up under the tutelage of a world famous author camouflaged as Mr. Jefferson.
The Yocona and Little Tallahatchie Rivers help shape youth, while the teen years find Scott and C.B. interacting with Weekend Warriors and the Klan. Summer jobs and outdoor experiences roughhew the boys into men. Adult complications in Sin City Memphis precede diverging paths with college forestry vs. the logging woods, grad school vs. a tour in Vietnam, and professional vs. technical careers in the workplace where they see things from differing perspectives during the environmental movement.
Challenges and opportunities are stretched from commonplace to the controversial in later life, with volunteerism during retirement uniquely within the conservation community. Senile citizenship and its heart-warming semi-acceptance at Golden Olden slip up on the two protagonists ... with a twist the reader doesn't expect and will be surprised with at the end.
Portrayals of secondary characters with only a tad more than their names changed are powerfully close to veritable. Examples include world-renowned author, William Faulkner and under-appreciated Black pioneer of Civil Rights, James Meredith...both with whom this author had personal experiences.
This Author gives a guarantee that if you don't love this book, he will eat it.
After a 101st Airborne Division tour in Vietnam, a BS in Forestry and a MS in Wildlife Management from Mississippi State University, and a distinguished career as a federal forester and wildlife biologist, Gerald Inmom has now retired to his hometown of Oxford, MS.
But first, his professional recognition and achievements included: nomination by the Three Rivers Chapter of the Society of American Foresters as Mississippi's most outstanding forester; being bestowed the Soil & Water Conservation District's Conservation Education Award; receiving five USDA Certificates of Merit for various natural resource works; being presented The Nature Conservancy's State Public Service Award; and earning two National Taking Wings Awards from the U.S. Forest Service, one for waterfowl habitat development and the other for partnership generation.
After gaining experience as a Forest Service spokesman, conservation group leader, state-level officer of the Society of American Foresters, university-level board member and representative, court witness and former contributing editor to several newspapers, Gerald has now broken ground in the unique genre of faction. He was repeatedly voted one of Oxford's "Favorite Living Writers" by the Oxford Eagle Newspaper readership.
Both books are STORY TIME FOR GROWNUPS...age-appropriate for 15 years old & up.
Yocona Puff Adder is a coming-and-going-of-age novel that's like three books rolled into one. Starting out like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, as the boys grow a little older it gets more like Forrest Gump. Then, as they get a lot older it becomes more like Tuesdays with Morrie.
In the early 50's, two seven-year olds in Oxford, Mississippi, grow up under the tutelage of a world famous author called Mr. Jefferson. Because one of the boys' grandfather owns property adjacent to him, they are forever encountering him as he teaches them things little boys need to learn about... everything from puberty to mankind and humanity. Although this is before racial integration and one of the boys is black and the other white, they remain best friends right through those struggles.
In 1962, when Mr. Faulkn...Mr. Jefferson that is...dies off, they are teen-agers by then and he has already planted the seed in them for his influence. They grow through working in the logging woods, Vietnam, college, and careers in the natural resources, where they both work for the Forest Service but see things from different perspectives during the environmental movement of the 70s-90s.
As they grow old and retire, they remain the best of friends, but then have to deal with each other in old age...and dementia...and an old folks' home.
Written in the unique genre of "faction", this is twisted truths, embellished events and purified people...mostly true and only tweaked a little to be more humorous, more horrible, more dramatic, more entertaining and interesting, more sexy, etc..
The author gives the guarantee that if you don't love this book, he will eat it.
Camp Re-Form is a character driven book about seven fifteen-year old boys sentenced to a judge ordered Boy Scout camp in lieu of reform school. Characters you'll learn to love struggle with everything from their efforts at honor and duty to mere survival.
Not since the prankish mischief-makers of M.A.S.H. has such a corps of individualized psychologies as these been heard from. Taking dialect to a whole new level, the patrol called Sarge's Snappers draws from seven different cultural backgrounds and the generational differences between them and their Scout Master.
An unlikely delinquent named Jed is the impassioned young protagonist. Reluctant to take over as patrol leader, he croons for Goose's girlfriend. Goose, being the Yankee atheist who lost last year's patrol leadership, now just wants to kick everybody's butt but Fanny Pearl's, whose he claims he'll soon soil instead.
Junebug, also called Junie, is just slow enough to single-handedly try out the retardation center's first effort at mainstreaming. He stutters his way from ob..ob..obstacles to stepping stones.
Coonie, articulately in the finest of Cajun dialect, doesn't miss an opportunity to impose his wrapped perspective on anyone who tries not to listen.
Overdrive, a slightly crippled genius who grew up in an auto shop, proves his worth with traits like the ability to hot-wire the camp jeep for sex-education favors from Stretch, power forward from the Dixie Carrot tops.
Chick is like these cohorts' American Indian contingent. He hardly talks, but campaigns for an Eagle project concerning his heritage along the Natchez Trace, despite the National Park Service bureaucracy.
A falsely accused but quickly convicted youngster nick-named Moses is secretively dying of leukemia...but more worried about spreading and shedding some spiritual sunlight to the others than any problems he may face as he tries to Christianize this not-so-righteous remnant of Snappers.
Under suspicion for liking little boys a little too much, Sarge seems to the boys to be about the last adult influence these sorta-scouts think they need as their role model. They think they can learn as much in spite of him as they are learning because of him.
Cookie, as camp cook, is the token adult female legally present. She represents the fairer sex, in addition to having a teen-aged daughter maned Fanny Pearl...thus the fodder for a most compelling near-love story and feud between Jed and Goose over her.
Acronymed BAD, Braxton Allen Dillion is a more-than-shady antagonist attempting to be-devil the patrol and sabotage their efforts to go straight.
Order now at special price $24.95 for hardcover (either book or $39.90 for both books - Mississippi residents add 7% tax )
Yocona Puff Adder ISBN-13:978-0-9774864-3-4
Camp Re-Form ISBN-13:978-0-9774864-7-2
Mail Check to:
Taylor House Publishing 141 CR 369 Oxford, MS 38655
or Telephone: 662-816-4180
It will be mailed immediately at media mail rate, so expect it in about a week
If you would like to contact Gerald Inmon personally for any reason, including ordering a personalized copy the e-Mail is gpinmon@olemiss.edu
Thank you very much. Camp Re-Form is currently being printed and should be available in early spring 2012.
