Sandy Compton published the memoir Side Trips From Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and The Western American Myth in 2009. A lot can happen in 15 years. This new version leaves some inconsequential stuff behind and brings more relevant material to take its place. Anyone who is, loves, knows or cares for an addict will benefit by reading Side Trips From Cowboy Revisited
Sonnichsen’s sources for Adventures in Good Living range from the ancient Greeks through Darwin and Thoreau to Rachel Carson and A.C. Grayling. The bottom line of his shared thoughts is that each individual has the capacity to live a good life, but it is each individual’s responsibility to take action to achieve it.
Don’t let your life happen by accident. In a world full of problems and the worries that accompany them, there is much to be learned here.
The book title, A Leaf in a Stream, was chosen to portray human life as a sequential series of random events over which we have minimal control. Stoics and Buddhists believe that it is useless to worry about what we cannot control in our world, so we should concentrate our energies on those things we can. Here are some ideas about how to go about that.
In All Fish Have Bones, Dick Sonnichsen tracks his life journey from committed Catholic to skeptic, explaining in detail why he has come to be an “unbeliever” along the way and what it has done for him emotionally, mentally, and, yes, spiritually.
In Mariam Lawton Clayton's words, "We loaded camp-kit and grub-box also a limited supply of clothing and started. We had no definite idea of distance or trail, but we planned to live in the open and take what came.”
Such was the beginning of a life-changing adventure that was also a honeymoon to Yellowstone National Park in a borrowed buckboard with a borrowed team.
During a 27-year tenure as missionaries for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in India, Herman and Mildred Reynolds raised three children and made hundreds of friends, Christian, Hindu and animist alike.
They also wrote thousands of words about their adventures and the adventures of their friends– and enemies — in the crowded subcontinent. Theirs was a time of transition between the imperial rule of Great Britain and Indian independence, which, once gained, caused them to leave their Indian “House by the Side of the Road,” and return to America. These are some of their words, written during and after living there.
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