Chapter 8 Thoreau SOMETIME IN the early days of high school I first became acquainted with Henry David Thoreau, and from then on he became a large part of my being. It is almost as though Thoreau had me in mind when he once wrote: “How many a man has dated a new era in […]

PART IIEastern America and the Lincoln Country Chapter 7 Getting Attention on Wall Street OUR FRIENDS, Art and Edna Fournier, had never been to New York City. Their first visit there came not only by aroundabout route but under most unusual conditions. As an executive of the Howell Electric Motors plant in our home town […]

Chapter 6 A Grain of Wheat Not often does a single Bible verse lead to an experiment that gains international attention, being carried by newspapers, magazines, radio, movies, and word of mouth around the globe, and affecting the lives of thousands of men and women. But that happened in connection with my friend Perry Hayden. […]

Chapter 5 Birthright All across America babies are birthing tonight, (And old folks are dying).A mighty wave of life undulates across the land. That little tyke born today on the midwest plains, Will be President of the United States someday, Leader of this land.No one knows it now—or even suspects it. That girl baby from […]

Chapter 4World War IWritten in 1974 for the Howell, Michigan Bicentennial History MY YEARS as a teenager were filled with the exciting routine of a small farming community in southern Michigan, surrounded by tantalizing woods and lakes and winding dirt roads. It was not only the time of my own teens, but also the teen […]

Chapter 3 Long Odds CHANCES OF being struck by lightning are two million to one, so I have been told. As a young boy, a lightning experience came my way which was perhaps even more rare than that. My brother and I were with our mother in the small living room of our home as […]

Chapter 2 Even Larger Than An Elephant WATER BOY to the elephants. That job got me—free of charge—into nearly every circus that came to my boyhood home town of Howell, Michigan. The elephants were large; they slurped up so much water, spilling a lot of it, that I got a sore arm carrying it. But […]

A Foreword Oct. 12, 1990 Californians have done it again. At a recent election they voted to double the gasoline tax. Why? To raise millions for building new highways in a last-ditch effort to ease an impossible traffic problem. Helen and I are delighted. But we had already worked out a solution—one which unfortunately is […]