[A Saturday Feature of the First Road Blog]
Looking
for some non-technical, rural thoughts on life? I recommend Cliff Schimmels’
1985 foursome: The Wheatheart Chronicles. On a road trip several years ago I came across an audio cassette of the
first book in the series. (At least I think it's the first. You can actually begin the series with any of them.) After Judy and I listened to the story we bought the
three companion audio books and have made them frequent companions on our
travels.
By
the time you have read or listened to the entire set you feel at home in Wheatheart,
Oklahoma, in the early 1980’s. You know the best place to eat, where to go for
the local news, the most active church in town, and a lot about the cycle of
life in a wheat farming community. You also know a local a kid named Dilbert,
a seminarian, the John Deere salesman, the town storyteller, the community’s
idolized football coach, the less than idolized high school superintendent, the principal (who could have made a better superintendent), and a wheat farmer and his
wife whose only son is a shadow in the background and, yet, a principal presence in each of the
narratives. I would call the series a tribute to his legacy.
Rivals of Spring is
the only one of the set narrated in the first person. It is a touching
chronicle of the development of friendship.
Summer Winds lets
the reader (listener) watch a seminary student with big, scholastic dreams endure and then learn
from his summer internship in Wheatheart - a community not especially tuned to Sunday
sermons on the authorship of Hebrews.
Rites of Autumn, third
in the series, unveils the home of the wheat farmer and his wife, introduces us
to their son, and through him, helps us understand the struggles of the other
leading characters in the community.
Winter Hunger wraps
the chronicles together with the discovery of the unsuspected struggles in the
life of the one player we and everyone else overlooked.
Very worthwhile stories.
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