My Four Friends: Growing Up on a Northern Minnesota Farm

In a day when farm folks pitched in together to accomplish tasks too big for one person, when strangers shared car rides, and housewives lingered over cups of hot coffee, a small boy named Joe discovered the richness of life on his grandfather's farm.A gentle, adventurous, and proud boy enraptured by farm life, Joe learned at a tender age that he had a way with animals, both domestic and wild. On Grandpa's farm, he became fast friends with a dog, a deer, a rabbit, and even a blue jay. His feathered and furry companions seemed to understand him just as perfectly as he did them. Their many carefree escapades included hunting woodchucks, visiting the barbershop, playing in the schoolyard, riding in the rumble seat of Grandpa's coupe, fishing in the creek, eating spaghetti lunches at the county fair, and much more. A memoir from the heart, this is the spirited tale of a young boy coming of age in a by gone era as he makes lasting memories and enduring friendships exploring field and forest with a bevy of animal buddies.

Joe McGraw, born seventy-eight years ago to Walter and Ellen McGraw in Hibbing, Minnesota, has been a pilot, an Air Force programmer, a schoolteacher, and a computer consultant. A father of eight and grandfather of fourteen, he lives with his wife in Arizona.