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    The Book with the Yellow Cover
    The Book with the Yellow Cover
    The Book with the Yellow Cover
    Ebook35 pages20 minutes

    The Book with the Yellow Cover

    By John Moncure Wetterau

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Book with the Yellow Cover
    Author

    John Moncure Wetterau

    Born in Greenwich Village, New York City, but raised, mostly, by my grandparents in Woodstock, a small town in the Catskill mountains. Midway through sophomore year at Hamilton College, an inner voice said, "Get out!" It seemed crazy, but I knew it was the right thing to do. A fraternity brother told me I'd have no trouble finding work on the shrimp boats in Key West. A friend and I hitchhiked south. Near the New Jersey line we got a ride with another young guy, Pete. "Where you headed?" "Florida." "Me, too." He told us that he'd gotten up before dawn in a small Vermont town, thrown clothes and a baseball glove in the trunk, left a note on his girlfriend's porch, and taken off. We rocked on down the coast, listening to Brenda Lee, getting warmer each day. I left my friends near Miami and went on to Key West. When I got there, I walked to the harbor and asked for a job on the first boat I found that had anyone on board. The captain said, "Shrimp season's over, kid." I think he felt sorry for me. He pointed to a rusty shrimper across the water. "He might take you." I picked up my bag and ran around to the other jetty, arriving just as the boat began to pull away. A man on deck was doing something with a cable. He wore a sweatshirt and had a two-day growth. "I'm looking for work," I shouted over the engine. "You a winch man?" The winch occupied a large part of the deck, a complicated assembly of giant gears and levers. The strip of water below my feet widened. It was jump or forget it. I had a vision of winching the boat upside down in the Gulf. I shook my head and walked to the Southern Cross Hotel, a wooden building with white peeling paint and a sign declaring, The Southernmost Hotel in the United States. I wrote it down in a notebook and have been writing ever since. Along the way I served in the Air Force, earned a degree in computer science from the University of Hawaii, married twice, and raised children. The adventures, the loves and betrayals, the teachers, the lessons---they are in my stories and poems, where, like all writers, I have tried to make of my deeper bio something worthwhile.

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      Book preview

      The Book with the Yellow Cover - John Moncure Wetterau

      The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Book With The Yellow Cover, by John Moncure Wetterau

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      ** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below ** ** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. **

      Title: The Book With The Yellow Cover

      Author: John Moncure Wetterau

      Release Date: February 9, 2004 [eBook #11006]

      Language: English

      ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK WITH THE YELLOW COVER***

      Copyright (c) 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau

      The Book With

      The Yellow Cover

      John Moncure Wetterau

      (c) copyright 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau.

      This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. Essentially, anyone is free to copy, distribute, or perform this copyrighted work for non-commercial uses only, so long as the work is preserved verbatim and is attributed to the author. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/ or send a letter to: Creative Commons 559 Nathan Abbott Way Stanford, California 94305, USA.

      ISBN #: 0-9729587-0-3

      Published by:

      Fox Print Books

      137 Emery Street

      Portland, ME 04102

      foxprintbooks@earthlink.net 207.775.6860

      Some of these poems first appeared in: Poetry East-West, The Maine

      Sunday Telegram, The Maine Times, Nostoc, Backwoods Broadsides,

      H.O.M.E., Headcheese, Chants, Backwoods Broadsides Chaplet Series, Café

      Review, and To Keep You Company.

      for w.cat

      I had a book of Chinese and Japanese poems that I gave to a friend on the west coast. It was a very small book with a yellow cover, stapled together.

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