Book excerpt: "Gary Carden is a folklorist and storyteller. He was raised by his grandparents in a house filled with the past. He grew up listening to Grady Cole and Renfro Valley on the radio while his grandfather tuned musical instruments with a tuning fork and sang hymns from a shape-note songbook. He grew up with cows, June apple trees, comic books, the Farmers' Federation, and Saturday movies. He told his first stories to 150 white leghorn chickens in a dark chicken-house when he was six years old. His audience wasn't terribly attentive and tended to get hysterical during the dramatic parts."--