Ripening stories : Ripeness is all; the rest is silence -- Shakespeare

Abstract

This is a collection of short and longer stories entitled Ripening Stories dealing with rural and small town settings in Michigan, and a year which I spent in Europe. The Michigan stories concern my experience working after I left college, and the European stories deal with what happened in Denmark and Greece. In each case, the stories involve a protagonist who is in, but not of, his surroundings, and focus on the conflict between him and what is happening to him. The stories are: "Crude Breakfast: A Penance," "Pickin' Apples," "The Free State," and "No Country for Old Men."