Then the Country Boy Wrote...: A collection of (mostly) outdoor tales by Morris Gresham (Volume 1)

Kendal Hemphill, an award-winning Texas writer, provided this view of Gresham's book, Then the Country Boy Wrote.... Life, you’ve probably heard, is what happens while you’re making other plans. I suppose that’s true for some, but not for those who enjoy the outdoors. Hunters, fishers, and campers get old, just like everyone else, but when they do they have a rich, panoramic field of memories to stroll through unavailable to those who have wasted their lives indoors. Morris Gresham may not be an old man yet, but since he started making those outdoor memories early in life, his album is a little fuller than most. You can’t sit around a fireplace or a campfire or a coffee table with Gresham without some of his love for the outdoors rubbing off on you. Give him half a chance, and pretty soon he’s knee-deep in a story about a hunting or fishing trip, or a dog he used to have, or a tent that leaked like a colander. And when he tells a story, Gresham lives it again. His eyes light up, his hands start waving around, and before long you’re right there in hunting camp with him, wet, cold, and having the time of your life. Not everyone can tell a story. Not everyone can make a forest come alive with dew on the leaves and the squirrels barking in indignation. Not everyone can bring a campfire right through a printed page, so you can feel the warmth seep into your fingers, and almost cough from the wood smoke. Not everyone can take you home. Gresham can. But although Gresham claims this book is a collection of (mostly) outdoor tales, that’s not entirely accurate. The great stories here all took place outside, true enough, but this is a collection of stories about the people who have helped Morris enjoy life, helped him to really live it, to fill his scrapbook with the kind of memories that don’t fade with the years, but grow sharper and clearer with the retelling. The people in our lives make us who we are, and the wonderful, larger-than-life people in these stories gave Gresham his love of the outdoors, and of life in general. If you’re lucky, you know folks like these. I count myself lucky for knowing Morris, and being able to call him friend. Kendal Hemphill Syndicated newspaper columnist Magazine Columnist Book author: The Buck Never Got Here