From the Prologue:
There is a point at which the Atlantic Ocean carries herself proudly toward land and rages against the coastline not far from Boston. The breakers erupt against rock, trying to turn it to wood, sending the harsh, white spume rocketing skyward, then down like a shower of bullets into the hollows of cold stone. This violence doesn’t know time. It was the same a year ago and ten years ago. It was the same 20 years ago. It was the same 30 years ago when I was a boy of thirteen. On a Monday morning in March of 1964, the fury was worse than ever.
Not far from the same cliff, on that Monday morning, the ocean opened herself to the majestic Merrimac. Upstream through the cities and towns of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Merrimac opened herself to the important Nashua. Further into New Hampshire the Nashua opened herself to the half-savage Nissitissit. In the center of my town of Brookline, the Nissitissit accepted waters from the Village Brook. Near the store, the brook flowed into and out of a fire hole. In the middle of the fire hole a bit of blue parka was floating in the icy March water. Underneath the parka was a small boy. The waves were pounding.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination. (Keats, letter, 1817)
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“A wonderfully enjoyable book of reminiscences and speculations. Small Town Tales preserves memories the way happy farmwives preserve peaches and strawberries. The results are equally wholesome and delicious. Sidney Hall’s work is a rare treat!”
—Fred Chappell
“Sidney Hall, Jr. is one of those thoughtful, intimate writers you become friends with instantly. His wonderful Small Town Tales remembers the Sixties, not as the turbulent decade that got into the history books, but as a time of gentle wonder for a boy coming of age in what already seems—change coming so fast now—a vanished paradise.”
—W.D. Wetherell
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“Sidney Hall, Jr. proves that real family values transcend the political cliche. Small Town Tales is . . . a genuine record of a fine way to raise children, be a family, live a life. It’s nostalgia with a twist.”
—Rebecca Rule
“. . . [a] deeply moving account of growing up . . . Hall’s philosophical, multi-layered insights transcend geography. They have a universal appeal.”
—Jack Barnes, Columnist
“Funny stories . . . by a poet of some distinction.”
—Geoffrey Elan, Yankee Magazine
“A door on childhood.”
—Ralph Jimenez, Boston Sunday Globe
“ . . . a touching paean on the poignancy of life, death, and the ethereal essences that survive even as we become adults. . . . The book is as light or as heavy as you want it to be. Halls prose is poetic and complex, yet makes for easy reading. You could pick up one of these three-page essays a day, or sit down and read the whole book in less than two hours.”
—Christine Halvorson, The Monadnock Ledger
184 pp, Paperback | ISBN 0-9636413-3-6 | Price $12.95 | Free Shipping |15% to ALS Association