The true story of a boy who went to sea and came back a man. The author, Russ Hofvendahl, was just 15 years old when he talked his way aboard an old-fashioned four-masted schooner, in an effort not only to satisfy a desire to go to sea, but more importantly, to escape the Great Depression and the way it had ... Read moreaffected the San Francisco waterfront. The WILLIAM H. SMITH was still in sight of the Golden Gate, when the stark reality of his impetious decision hit him; there would be no exotic destination for him just the remote, icy Bering Sea, and the cod-fishing grounds. It is a story you will not easily put down.
Sailing
Those who survived the Depression never forgot it. Veterans selling apples on street corners. Women taking in washing to survive. Children going without lunch. But along with the bitter memories come the sweet. It was a time when a hungry traveler appearing at the back door of a house might get a job, or at least a glass of cold water. A period when the homeless weren't seen as eyesores, but as neighbors who'd fallen on hard times. Campbell attorney Russell L. Hofvendahl remembers those times well. A San Francisco 15-year-old with a strong case of wanderlust and a pressing need of a job he worked on a four-masted schooner, a story he told in 1983's Hard on the Wind. Now, in A Land So Fair and Bright, he tells what happened when he stepped ashore. Hofvendahl liked sailing, a lot. But he didn't much like his new berth as a messman on a Swedish freighter. So, with a friend, he jumped ship in Canada in 1938 and set out to find his fortune working the wheat harvest. At $1 a day, the fortune wasn't there to be found. But what Hofvendahl did discover was life as a Knight of the Road a hobo. Riding boxcars, hitching rides and tramping on foot he crossed the continent twice. In North Dakota he bluffed his way into a job driving a team of horses and almost lost his life. In New York he found a job as a clothes presser, and a romance. Crossing the Southwest, he had to be careful to elude police, railroad thugs and violent drifters. Yet almost everywhere, he found trusting people, willing to help. This is a wonderful tale of one boy's coming of age and a country and a life that may never be again
San Jose Mercury News
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