In Second Age, you're pulled into travel and adventure in the 1930's. The author floated part way down the Mississippi during the Great Depression, with adventure, good times, and hard times along the way. Then he worked as a bellboy on the President Coolidge, to cities and ports in the Far East. Second Age is simply written, and you live the author's adventures when he was a student and as a young man. He and a friend worked their way in a shanty boat part way down the Upper Mississippi. Then he traveled to San Francisco and to the Far East. He re-lived all this while he was writing about it when he was in his late 80's. He re-experienced places and felt how they were. He felt love, happiness, and fear, he knew smells and tastes all over again, and he felt sunlight, storms, cold and damp. We often forget how to enjoy the simple necessities of life. Second Age takes us to a time when eating oatmeal and raisins, having a warm place to be, hearing red-winged blackbirds calling, meeting new people, and seeing new places are enough to touch the heart, mind, and soul. There is a place in each of us that needs to know the importance of appreciating what you have in your life. The author wrote in a warm and personal manner. His book evokes a time of simpler living and firm values. You experience a joy and a depth in what life has to offer and in what it has to teach.
