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Title: You Can Go Home Again by Gene Logsdon ISBN: 1-59098-218-5 Publisher: Wooster Book Co. Pub. Date: October, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Contrary's Farmer Autobiography
Comment: Gene Logsdon has published his autobiography. Telling the story of his life - from farm boy to the Roman Catholic seminary, studying for the priesthood, dropping out, graduate school, and editor of a farm magazine and finally back to Ohio - he describes how his life comes to a circle. He returned to the good life of his childhood - at least almost. As a witness of the great change in agriculture, he feels a little bit like the last of the dinosaurs, one of the last generation who grew up on a traditional farm before agrobusiness destroyed the culture of rural America. Logdson does not present great programmes, but he has rather chosen to change his life by living an alternative life and work for in his home area for a resurgence of rural America. With his writings he nevertheless exercised a great influence. If you have enjoyed any of Logsdon's books, are interested into rural living and agrarian thought, this book is definitely worthwile reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: We're doing it -- Coming home
Comment: I *am* going home again. After nearly 20 years in Texas, my family is moving back to Ohio. We feel that call that Gene Logsdon describes so movingly, hilariously. Now, most people, considering the fact that we are doing it by going first and finding jobs later, think we are certifiable. How wonderful to read Gene's work and find encouragement in values that go beyond acquisition and comfort. We're college [over]educated and employable, and jobs are the least of our worries.
Gene's book talks about home, care, a sense of place. When a place where eleven generations have called home calls you back, you have to listen, and that's why we're going. We have a "10-year plan" -- we're lucky enough to be starting out on some acreage on my Dad's farm. And will build from there. My child and my brother's children will be able to cross the pasture to visit each other and their grandparents.
Will we be self-sufficient? Of course not. What does that mean anyway? People are too "self-sufficient" as it is. I want to live someplace where I can depend on people (in all the right senses of the word). We'll grow some vegetables and berries, raise some chickens and have a good time doing it. I dream grandiosely of a cow or maybe three goats (I want to name them Gina, Lola and Brigitta, but my husband is pushing for "Shot Clock I, II, & III" [he spends a lot of time statting basketball games!]) I pour over Lehman's catalogues. It's fun to plan.
I think that's where reviewer "trailboss" below misses Gene's point. I've read everything of Gene's that I can lay my hands on (too much is out of print! ), and one point he repeatedly emphasizes is that this is not about subsistence farming. There's more than "survival" to it or it wouldn't be worth last week's supermarket strawberries.
Gene never claims that you can find Total Peace, Contentment and Happiness and on a homestead. If you don't have some of that before you start, then disappointment is inevitable.
Going home is about place, people, and good dirt. That's the saving grace of it. Not making a "profit" on it, not becoming Organically Pure, or worshipping Gaia. Of course, you can do all those things, but the home and the dirt is the start of it.
And the softball. Former high school first-base ace here! Since we're moving to southern Richland County, Ohio, I hope we get to meet Gene and the boys in a softball tournament somewhere, sometime! In the meantime, Gene, keep pestering your publishers about reprints. :)
Rating: 5
Summary: Uncommonly gutsy and intimate
Comment: I just finished the book.
Reading the other reviews, one gets the feeling that they were reading different books. It reminds me of the Indian folktale of the four blind men and the elephant. Actually, I like the Persian version better: where three men encounter the elephant on a very dark night. The fourth man brings a candle. Ultimately, the Persian story is a story of redemption and salvation. And so is You Can Go Home.
This book is likely to cause discomfort to those have a very high need for order. Sometimes we (the Hecksel's) have guests on short notice. When that happens, we make the house suitable for company by taking all the clutter-of-life and pitching it into one of the bedrooms...the one with the lock, of course. Gene's book is a personal guided tour of that room. Great fun for those who love stories and antiques. Pain for those who crave a completely deterministic approach to life.
Gene is gutsy because he talks about religion. Gene is doubly gutsy for talking about money. Americans are funny people. We will tell total strangers of our sexual conquests before ordering our second drink, but not tell our CPA the true extent of our wealth & earnings. Go figure.
We are rich in proportion to what we do not need.
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Title: Living at Nature's Pace: Farming and the American Dream by Gene Logsdon, Wendell Berry ISBN: 189013256X Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Man Who Created Paradise by Gene Logsdon, Gregory Spaid, Wendell Berry ISBN: 0821414070 Publisher: Ohio Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Five Acres and Independence by Maurice G. Kains ISBN: 0486209741 Publisher: Dover Pubns List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon ISBN: 0930031741 Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Sierra Club: Unsettling of America : Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry ISBN: 0871568772 Publisher: Sierra Club Books Pub. Date: 19 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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