About the Book

Wild Oats is Huffman’s honest recollection, observations and impressions of Avenal and the colorful folks he knew before, during and after WW2. An insightful look at this small California oil town’s culture.

With the book, you get a personal time capsule of a small place in the history of a very special California valley town, told in the author's voice and in the age and attitude of those distant times. These are glimpses of some of his boyhood experiences, during the brightest bloom in a young Avenal. A timeline details events in Avenal’s historic birth.

About the Author

Perry Huffman left the small California oil town of Avenal and attended college to graduate in four years and became a longtime successful California artist and occasional writer.

Winning a poppy poster contest in Grade 8 probably started his path toward art. He was elected Commissioner of Arts at Visalia College of Sequoias and appointed art director of the college magazine at San Jose State where he earned his BA in Art.

Huffman won a national award for one of his political cartoons and a best of show for a portrait of William Saroyan in the Bicentennial Fresno District Fair art show.

While Wild Oats is his first book you will find in print, his political cartoons, celebrity portraits, characters and newspaper illustrations have been seen in print for years in the central California area including several stories he wrote and illustrated.

The project started as a way to capture some idea of life in that time period for his family and evolved into a book with some insight into life in a small historic oil town, from one boy's perspective.

Excerpts