By Thanksgiving It'll Be Funny

About the Book

Polly Tooker, By Thanksgiving It´ll Be Funny REVIEWS: "Herein lies a well written combination of humor, history and nostalgia. You´ll find how a multi-generational family dealt with the good times and the hard times to emerge with happy memories. Growing up in Vermont I knew many of the people in this book. Ms. Tooker has treated them accurately and lovingly. When you finish, you´ll feel as if you knew them also, and be happy you were introduced!" Sherrill B. Nott, PhD Professor Emeritus Michigan State University "Tooker´s memoir offers its reader many delights. Among them are vivid recollections of the characters who peopled the summers of her childhood in the green hills of Vermont. You´ll meet a grandfather who chose his bride-to-be when she was still an infant. There´s Lady Lu, the indomitable deaf live-in seamstress who kept the family clothed. Ever wonder how to instantly calm a container of boiling maple sap? Ask Uncle Jim. He also may (or may not) reveal how to devise a jigsaw puzzle whose edges cannot be recognized as edges. Realism, warmth, humor, a distinctive literary voice. They´re all here." Rita Jamison, Freelance Writer and Instructor "As a fellow student in the Memoir-Writing class in the LosAltos Adult Education Program, I was always impressed with Polly Tooker´s clear portrayal of early days spent on her grandparents´ farm. Her continuing stories of family life, travel, and home-based career are filled with colorful personalities and, inevitably, touched with humor." James O. Thomas, Author Trapped with the Enemy (Xlibris) "Polly Tooker´s well designed memoirs are clearly written and skillfully woven together. Short, fully developed vignettes of everyday happenings from the innocence of childhood through wisdom in parenthood and development as a professional editor are rich in detail. Anecdotes of her years with geologist husband and three daughters are related with love and a keen sense of humor. Vivid word paintings of the many and varied venues of her life give the reader insight into where and how she met achievement, success and disappointment. Thoughtful, sensitive and witty, Tooker is a lively storyteller." Colleen R. Watson Writing Instructor, Memoirs EXCERPTS Polly Tooker´s memoirs come in a variety of sizes, settings, and flavors. Here, for your tasting pleasure, are a few excerpts. From "Always the Green Hills," an account of the author´s childhood summers in rural Vermont during the twenties and thirties: One summer a carful of the grown-ups – out of curiosity, rather than religious fervor, I´m sure – went down to Camp Meeting. These week-long evangelistic gatherings were held in a huge tent set up on the White River Campgrounds, with a hayshed out back for the horses and wagons. Our little group was apparently unmoved by the sermon but much impressed by the uninhibited responses of "Amen! Amen!" and "Save the brother!" shouted out spontaneously during the service. For the rest of the summer, when an announcement came from the kitchen, as, "Another canner finished – that´s fourteen quarts of tomatoes done!" the Greek chorus on the porch, arms upflung and fingers fluttering, would cheer, "Bless the sister! Bless the sister!" Grandpa gave it as his opinion that more souls were made in the hayshed than were saved in the tent, and I´m sure the chorus responded, "Amen, Brother!" * * * Several times during a summer we would pile into the car and go to a matinee in White River, five miles away. My grandmother never missed a Shirley Temple or Broadway Melodies movie. On the way home, our car didn´t always make the grade at Jericho Hill on the first try, and Mother would have to back down the hill and make another run at it. As a last resort, we would climb out to lighten the load and walk up the slope. As we stopped at the top to catch our bre

About the Author

Polly Tooker, By Thanksgiving It'll Be Funny Long/Short BIO Polly Tooker, a self-styled "string-saving, dyed-in-the-wool New Englander," was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. She spent her school years in New Hampshire and her summers in Vermont. Graduating with a BA in French from Bates College in Maine, she stayed on there for two years as Director of the News Bureau. She married Ed Tooker in 1946 and followed his career trek westward from graduate schools in Pennsylvania and Illinois to his assignments with the US Geological Survey in Colorado and Utah, landing finally and permanently in Los Altos, California. During those years she maintained a home-typing service, produced three daughters, and served as church, school, and community volunteer. She now includes editing as a part-time activity, along with traveling and grandmothering. For several years she has participated in the Memoir-Writing class at the Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education School. Her life stories are written with warmth, humor, and a wry appreciation for the human condition.