Michael Perry is one of my heroes; well, at least he’s one of my literary heroes. His “Roughneck Grace” column in the Sunday State Journal is the first thing I read every Sunday morning. In it, he writes about anything on his mind. Sort of like this column, right?
One recent weekend he wrote about poetry. Another was about his neighbor Tom. Another was about his lifelong love for the book “The Land Remembers.” Great stuff.
I first became aware of Michael Perry when a friend gave me one of his books, “Population 485,” a collection of related essays about life in New Auburn, Wisconsin. Sylvia was also a native of that area, and she thought I’d enjoy Perry’s writing.
And she was right; I loved it.
“Population: 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time” came out in 2002, and it relates some stories about the people of New Auburn as seen through the eyes of Perry, a volunteer fire and rescue service EMT. Perry is a registered nurse by training, and he says that of all his experiences, the single most meaningful thing he has ever done was serving 12 years with his fellow volunteers on the New Auburn Area Fire Department.
The last two essays in that collection brought tears to my eyes.
After I’d read “Population 485,” I went to the library and got everything I could find by Perry. I found a couple of essay collections that had been published before “Population 485,” so I read those, too.
The first was “Why They Killed Big Boy and Other Stories” (1996). The story in the title was about the disappearance of the big signature plastic statue from the roof of a Marc’s Big Boy restaurant. It was a funny story, as were many of the other essays in the collection.
The second collection of essays was called “Big Rigs, Elvis & the Grand Dragon Wayne” (1999). These stories involved Perry’s adventures as he rode along in the cab of a big 18-wheeler on a cross-country trip. Fifteen of the 20 essays were later republished in another book, “Off Main Street” (2005).
In these essays, Perry tells how his nursing education prepared him to become a writer by training him in human assessment, and he gives credit to his parents, of whom he says, “Anything good is because of them, everything else is simply not their fault.”
Perry says his mother taught him to read and filled the house with books. Because they lived on a dairy farm, his father taught him how to do farm chores such as cleaning calf pens. Perry has written, “a childhood spent slinging manure – the metaphorical basis for a writing career.”
You can probably see why I liked his work so much. I, too, grew up on a dairy farm, and as my readers know, I often write about those experiences.
Perry followed that book with “Truck: A Love Story” (2006), in which he relates his love affair with the restoration of an old International pickup truck. The opening sentence of the book almost guarantees that you’ll continue reading: “The story begins on a pile of sheep manure the size of a yurt.” But it’s so much more than a story about a truck; it’s full of great characters, and it’s a wonderful, warm love story. A real “guy’s love story.”
He followed that with “Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting” (2009). Great stories about his adventures as an amateur chicken grower, pig farmer, and instant parent when he marries the love of his life who brings her daughter into his bachelor existence.
Perry’s next offering was “Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace” (2012). These are stories about Perry’s eccentric 82-year-old neighbor Tom and his wife of 62 years, Arlene. Tom is an inventor, a philosopher, a raconteur. Perry loves the old man, and so did I when I read the book.
In addition to his books, Perry hosts the nationally syndicated “Tent Show Radio,” performs all over the country as a humorist, and tours with his band the Long Beds. He has recorded some live humor albums, including “Never Stand Behind A Sneezing Cow” and “The Clodhopper Monologues.” He is currently doing a national tour publicizing his first young adult novel, “The Scavengers.” He lives with his wife and two daughters near Chippewa Falls.
One of my readers once told me that he didn’t give a darn about what I read, so I took that into consideration before I wrote this. But I thought maybe some of you would like Michael Perry if you gave him a try. What the heck?
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