Born in 1940 to three generations of eastern Iowa farmers, Robert Charles "Bobby" Bancks enjoyed a childhood unique to that era: playing among the crops and animals in warm weather, sledding down snowbanks in cold, attending his one-room school, and learning the lessons of love, loss, and togetherness that sustained his rural community.

From funny anecdotes and family vacations to reflections on hardship and tragedy, this memoir of growing up as an Iowa farm boy provides a unique snapshot into a vanishing way of life and a portrait of the character that such a life builds. Full of humor and whimsy as well as gentle reflection, Bancks conjures to vivid life the events that shaped him, the relationships that inspired him, and his feelings for the landscape he calls home.