Making My Way, Memories of a Boyhood Along the Skipanon River

By Rudolph Terry Shappe

In writing a poignant memoir that recalls an accurate sense of small-town Oregon an the mid-twentieth century, the author tells how he came to grips with school, his first love, his family's financial... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0966963709
• ISBN13: 9780966963700
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: South Jetty Pub
• Length: 205 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Small Town America at its Best

"Making My Way" is a nostalgic trip back to small town America of the 40s and 50s. Feels good when high tech and millennium headlines furrow the brow. Shappee, born in 1939, soaked up character, backbone and indelible memories in Warrenton, Oregon and other towns along the magic coastline. In this memoir, Shappee shares personal memories of his family, of early homes and chums. His dad was a fisherman, gone for long periods, so mom did the raising. In his teens, Shappee got to help his dad prepare the boat for long runs to the Columbia River and the Pacific. One home sat across from the general store and gas station at Newton's Corners, a pefect spot for curious, young eyes and ears. The author shows what really brought indoor plumbing home. "The biggest bear I had ever seen," had trapped his mother in the outhouse. A flashlight and screwdriver helped young Shappee discover a forgotten, boarded-up library in one house; including books with pictures of body parts! We ride along as the boy gains his sea legs aboard his father's boat in heavy seas, and smell the printer's ink during his first newspaper days on the hometown Columbia Beacon. All

A teacher teaches us through his memories...

Terry Shappee gives us a child's view of the rich tapestry of life on the Oregon coast in the forties and fifties. There, despite the hardships and financial struggles of his family, he learned the values he now teaches us in Making My Way. Mr. Shappee presents a collection of memories that reveal more about him, and ultimately all of us, than the great issues and worldwide problems that fill so many of the books in our bookstores and the television screens in our homes.

A delightful trip of growing, living and learning in the NW.

& #65279;Reading "Making My Way" is like glimpsing into a later day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, or walking down one of the streets in "Cannery Row". The story takes one back to a time not too long ago, but a time that might be forgotten. You see life in the Northwest at a time when the world was going through one of it's most trying times. You are able to share a young man's life growing up in those times. This should be required reading for all school children. If it weren't for stories like "Making My Way" our past with all of it's good qualities would be lost. A must for everyone who wishes to experience those bygone days. -- Sam Younghans, Actor/writer 4/10/99

Memoir of small town America

Rudy Shappee paints a picture of childhood and family with broad brushstrokes of love in his book, "Making My Way." He is magnanimous in making allowances for the foibles of people that he grew up with in a rural Oregon coastal town during the middle of the century. The values and basic skills, that he learned as a boy, are universal to the survival of any society.He writes of loyalty, humor, and comradeship among boyhood friends along with the danger and beauty of an unforgiving sea that provided the family livelihood. His parable of wartime generosity, when people strayed on the other side of the law to feed neighbors, asks the question, is it better to follow the letter of the law, or follow the dictates of the heart?Laugh and cry as you get caught up in this world of secret rooms,adventures, odd jobs, and loss of a first love, in a boy's journey to manhood.If you want to rekindle memories of your own childhood, or read about how you wish your childhood had been, read this book.

A great book

This book was written by my history teacher at Scripps Ranch High School. He has shared many of stories with us in class, and I would recommend reading this!