The Old Man and the Boy

About the Book

An Old Man returns to the farm, in Michigan's upper thumb, where he lived as a boy forty-five years earlier. The desire for rest and relaxation is only a pretense. His real purpose is to make peace with some troubling memories. He finds the farm and much of the countryside reclaimed by wilderness, the nearby town a mere relic of the past, and the two room school replaced by a regional education complex. He is unprepared for the changes, and reminisces about the community as he remembers it.

The story of The Old Man's Return ends and The Boy's Story begins on the back porch of the farmhouse. Memories of his boyhood merge with reality as the Old Man's mind rambles from kissing girls in the snow on Spencer's hill, to getting caught cheating on a spelling test, from being swatted in the face by a wet cow's tail, to the delicious coolness of the swimmin' hole. The "Old Man" and the "Boy" are the same person separated only by time, and time surrenders its grip into the flood of memories that overwhelms the Old Man.

About the Author

Emil Joseph "Joe" Amberboy was born in Detroit, Michigan, February 28, 1932. He spent his childhood in Michigan and Utah, and later attended the Universities of Utah, Colorado, and Denver. He was in the Air force during the Korean War. His career was with the Aerospace industry in Houston, Texas.

He was married and had three children. He later divorced and married Marina Amberboy in 1984. He began writing The Old Man and The Boy in 1987, and finished in October, 1999 just prior to his death in January, 2000.