Dark and bleak...poignant, sensitive and hopeful...humorous...and occasionally lost in time... This collection of short stories by veteran journalist and short story writer Don Hatfield offers all this and more. His coming-of-age tales have the ring of truth, his characters the sound and feel of real people as seen through the eyes of a young observer. There is the family of females who move in next door, one of whom advertises her wares by standing naked on the back porch facing the main road. There is the uncle who won a war single-handedly, at least in the eyes of his young nephew. And another uncle who lived a wasted--or was it wonderful?--life. There is an old man running blindly through the woods unable to remember why he is running. And a lonely man reaching out...and another who simple wants to get out. Remarkable, unforgettable people presented in stories as genuine as the land from which they sprang.