Deanne L. Young

a fascinating story, a poetic profile of humor and pathos, from children wandering the woods of Michigan with guns, shooting up street signs, easily fighting and fragilely loving each other, to an absentee father with a wicked sense of humor as his little flock of quail follow him everywhere they can, when not setting slot-machines to pay off every four plays and pretending to man their father's marina to collect money from the boaters needing gas on the days it is closed, giving all his guns away to bikers, and one binding a sister's diary pages in a book as a Christmas present to the parents. We feel, rather than read, the love for each sibling the author discovered just as they were leaving life. We are introduced to a never-seen side of the current American health care scene and poverty in the U.S.as it looks and is, or can be, even for our children who grew up wealthy. It is the story of a man born with the genes for genius, held down by a marriage to a nut the reader slowly comes to understand. The author takes a straight-forward look at the tragedies that befell her siblings, and the ultimate changes inside a little girl too smart to hide from truth but too loyal to look until forced at the "pockets of change" her father always had for her, and ultimately why that was ok, although meant as bitter recrimination by a mother in an age when families stayed together and kept their secrets; and the reader grasps, through a narrative laced with poetry, the daughter's gradual backing off and then re-embracement of a troubled family headed by the very untroubled, always happy Martha Young , taught by husband Paul Young to hunt and fish who from then on, always caught more than him, be it ducks or trout, and always in the author's world, ensuring the mother does not take off with her genetic descendants, guiding us to an understanding of how one day another woman now the family matron can smile with tears while thinking, "boy, our family..." It includes pages of photos of dressed-alike twins taken by Paul H. Young, and notes found at my parents' deaths that explain as many mysteries as they stir up. The memoir is peppered with what seem like natural history lessons until all the flies, birds, fish, and animals the readers learn a little about become the family, explain the family, as no one but a poetic-bent child, grandchild, and great-grandchild of men "who knew the names and songs of all the birds, and the names and properties of all the plants and trees" could do, and salted with subconcious feelings unfurled in short vignettes about someone who seems vacant, whose condition becomes slightly clearer with each slice offered, until the reader understands, and upon finishing the book, is glad the dad was finally wrong about something, something he told a 9-year-old more than 40 years before, laughingly; "no buck is going to come walking right up to you and stand there." But the pockets no longer contain just change."And a little lemon for it," Deanne ends one of her poems, written as a teen, and like the other few poems she includes that she wrote as a child and teen, it's significance goes on, and on, and on. This is one of those books you don't stop thinking about once you put it down, and you search for other works by its author, even while knowing there is nothing she has left unsaid.… (mer)

Paul H. Young took the light-weight and short bamboo fishing rod out of the toy, or novelty, class and made it the common bamboo rod in use since the 1940s. Initially he was laughed at--until people began to catch huge salmon and bonefish on the 6 and 7-foot long rods. He was also a superb fisherman, fly-tier, wrote books and had unique, folksy catalogs, and owners of his rods ( originally sold for $15 to $80, now selling for up to $10,000 each) included Dwight Eisenhower, Henry Ford, Ted Williams, and many other well-known people. Trout Unlimited named a chapter they'd formed for him. The book tells many little-known things about him and is the first book ever written about him, although there were many articles, and still are. It has one-of-a -kind photos of him as a baby, boy, young man, his wife and sons, and reprints articles about him by Arnold Gingrich (founding editor of "Esquire" magazine), Robert Travers (aka Judge John Voelker, author of Anatomy of a Murder) and A.J. McClane (founding editor of "Field and Stream") from their books still in print decades after their own deaths ( Trout Magic by Travers/Voelker, The Well-Tempered Angler by Gingrich, and McClane's New Standard Encyclopedia of Fishing , as well as articles by others, and letters by others (incl. Ted Williams, baseball Hall -of -Famer, Wes Jordan of South Bend Rod Co., Arthur Nuemann, co-founder of Trout Unlimited ), and stories by his brother,named for his cousin, baseball-great Cy Young, Paul's cousin Michigan historian Eva Ferrier, his son, and granddaughter that tell facts never before revealed about Young, and reprints his little gem of a book, Making and Using the Fly and Leader. For the first time fans will learn that his father was raised on a commune inspired by Rousseau, his mother had to let her sister raise his little brother and sisters (incl. Ben Young, co-founder and first vice-president of The National Bank of Detroit) while taking in boarders to survive 1900-1917 while his father "went missing", that his grandmother's father was a brother of the father of John Moses Browning who invented so many automatic weapons and parts including the Browning machine gun used extensively in WW1, that his mother's side is traced (and illustrated by personal stories in my book) in a direct line to 3 Revolutionary War foot soldiers and Captain John Browning, who was one of the earliest colonists of Jamestown, Virginia , a Burgess of two neighboring counties, member of first and oldest family in Virginia ( with his sons 6 and 7 and brother), a principle member of this first colony to succeed on American soil,arriving the day after Indians marched all whites not in Fort James into the sea to walk back to England, killing most if not all colonists living off fort (300 some) with a boat of dying men poisoned from "one Jeffrey Dupper's poisoned "beere" , and sister ship Sea Flower with all supplies never showed. Paul goes back in a direct line to at least 1264 England while on his father's side,almost all ancestors named john Browning til 1700. His grandmother was a quarter- Cree Indian from Canada.They will also read Martha and Paul's diaries upon marrying in 1920 when Martha was 20 and only here 6 years from Marseilles, France, land of all her ancestors, and of the rough winter Paul and his young bride had running a wheat farm in Saskatchewan that year. It holds within its covers fascinating tales, pages of photographs of his highly praised bamboo rods and skillfully made dry flies and taxidermy work, the story of his company and copies of his collectible catalogs , themselves containing letters from famous folk, drawings of his unique inventions Arnold Gingrich swore no angler could do without, fascinating pictures of the large fish these "fairy wands" caught to the surprise of even their maker, and how-to lessons with photos. No one knows, but soon will, the tale of Martha wanting her sons to see her homeland all her life, and how one does , finally--as he is forced to bomb its roads and bridges in the second World War. The book has something in it for everyone, from lovers of good stories to fans of Young's writing, rods, tackle and taxidermy. It is a history unlike any other.… (mer)