is a precocious, sensitive, and rambunctious boy trying to make it through adolescence during the depression years. On a red-clay farm in Georgia he learns all there is to know about cotton chopping, hog killing, watermelon thumping, and mule handling. School provides a quick course in practical joking, schoolboy crushes, athletic glory, and clandestine sex. But it is Porter's family - his genteel, patient mother, his swarm of cousins, his snuff-dipping grandmother, and, most of all, his beloved though flawed father - who teach Porter the painful truths about growing up strong enough to run with the horsemen.

    The speaker is John Sims, an unlettered pig farmer, and the journey is the back roads of southern Utah. While John and his driver drink canned beer, we hear of pranks, pitfalls, bootleggers, rural childhood, bluecollar jobs, and the horrifying tale of an explosive accident on an oil rig.

    Her autobiography is a valuable source of information on early southern Utah and Mormon history.