Semi True : Seasons on the Road with A Prairie Home Companion's Resident Writer and Truck Driver

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Summary: A lively first-person account of close encounters
Review: Twelve years of hauling stage equipment for public radio's Prairie Home Companion show led hauler/author Ross Ringsak to become privy to some amazing stories gleaned from truck stops, blues bars and more. Fans of Prairie Home Companion will be the likely audience for his social survey of factual tales encountered during the course of truck driving. Semi True: Seasons On The Road With A Prairie Home Companion's Resident Writer And Truck Driver a lively first-person account of close encounters of the folk kind.


Rating:
Summary: The USA through the eyes of a trucker who loves his job
Review: You could take a video tour or even a driving tour of this country and miss most of what the author sees, hears and tastes. Avoiding the common roads, eateries, entertainment and attitudes most of us travelers fall prey to out of habit and convenience, he seeks out the unique. Rather than avoiding conversation with strangers he engages them until they come forward with stories and secrets. And there are some great stories here.
I have been awed and impressed in my travels to places that have left an indellible impression, but I have missed the details, the subtle shifts in the landscape and the weather and the people, that this author perceives and writes about so naturally.
This is a truck driver with suprising sensitivity to his surroundings. These stories will make you wish you could ride shotgun and get the personal tour. If this book doesn't make you yearn to travel to places you've never experienced, or even to familiar places with new eyes, nothing will.
In the end though, the ultimate feeling he leaves with the reader is the warmth at the end of the journey... arriving home, even if means being greeted by a bitter Minnesota blizzard.
If you are a fan of books by authors like Studs Terkel, who make the common man interesting and even heroic, you will like this book.