****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I highly recommend this thoroughly entertaining memoir. After almost four decades of university teaching, Stu Omans, the author, retires at the age of 63 but only to pursue yet another series of adventures with his wife, Jan. The book tells the journey of buying and settling into a home in the remote mountains of North Carolina and adjusting to this new environment.Of course, this is a journey countless other couples have made, but what makes Stu's story particularly compelling are the many people he and his wife meet, the travails and humor of these two city people learning the ways of rural mountain life, the numerous tidbits of hard-earned wisdom conveyed throughout, and the essential goodness of this married couple and just about all of the people they meet.As with most memoirs, this one is a series of vignettes or small stories but all tied together in unexpected ways. Among other stories, we're told of the mountain family that must sell the house and move to Atlanta, of attending an old fashioned river baptism, of how the couple learns to garden on a grand scale, of searching for fencing in the deep back woods where even many of the locals won't venture, and of how Stu and Jan met. And more than a few of the stories are hilarious. The preacher conducting the old fashioned river baptism, for example, is swept away by the current, and the Omans, both Jewish, are more than a little out of place.The most heartening and enlightening story concerns neighbors and their son Noah, how this family helps and welcomes the Omans into their lives and how the Omans return the favor. Noah, a young man, introduces himself to the Omans not long after they move in, offering to help out in any way he can. They hire him to mow and weed the large lawn as well as tend to other odd jobs, and along the way learn that Noah is an innocent, someone who will always need others to look after him. Stu develops a special bond with Noah teaching him how to read and other life skills while Noah teaches Stu about the ways of mountain people, and, more importantly, about how your life can be transformed if you allow it to be.
