Willem Lange is sixty-two years old. He has most of his hair and neither of his original knees. Will first came to New England to prep school in 1950 as an alternative to reform school in his native New York State. During most of his time since, he has been collecting stories about the unique people and places in this surprisingly funny part of the world. During a few absences from New England in the late 1950's Will managed to earn an undergraduate degree in nine years at the College of Wooster in Ohio. In between those widely scattered semesters, he worked variously as a ranch hand, Adirondack guide, preacher, construction laborer, bobsled run announcer, assembly line worker, cab driver, bookkeeper, and bartender.

After finally graduating in 1962, he taught high school English for six years, filling in summers as an Outward Bound Instructor. He and his wife Ida, who is the proprietor of a kitchen design business, have been married for thirty-eight years. They live on a dead end road in Etna, NH and have three children and four grandchildren.

We meet, for example, Baddy, the crusty timber camp cook whose love of hunting ends the day he witnesses the needless death of a fawn. We experience rites of passage: an old man determined to spend one last night alone in the deep woods; a young man discovering for the first time the indelible beauty of a northern September morning; and Langeís own realization that, "for the first time, Iíll be the oldest man in camp, and my son will be carrying most of my pack."