Walking Tractor And Other Country Tales

Bruce Patterson

Hard work and love of the land in the heart of redwood country

Imagine driving a tractor at fifteen miles per hour on a highway.

"Walking tractor" is just one of the odd jobs Bruce Patterson has gotten good at. Set in northern California's Anderson Valley, these personal essays tell of Patterson's love of rural living and his experiences working as a logger, fleece stomper, weed whacker, and in other seasonal and physically demanding jobs. Patterson's engaging tales of tough work and end-of-the-day carousing are insightful, honest, and, best of all, a hoot.

Reviews

"Bruce Patterson is a writer with raw power and authenticity that can take a reader's breath away."—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

"I was in jail with Patterson in the early days of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, back in 1971. Walking Tractor is a really charming book. It's very honest, very truthful. I remember Patterson to be just a really honest person, saying shocking things nobody else would say."—Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July

"It's rare to read in serious literature accounts of people doing this kind of work that don't patronize or demean them. Steinbeck did it, of course—wrote of ordinary workingmen as if they were to be honored and respected as much as knights and princes. And Bukowski wrote of workingmen as if they are the essential cogs that keep the world turning. Patterson does both."—Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac

About the Author

Now a part-time ranch hand, Bruce Patterson lives in Mendocino County, California.