This collection of family stories tells of many repeat performances--over more than one hundred years and in places all over the United States. We call these repeat performances "companion stories" told by a dozen family story-tellers. There are repeat performances of such family experiences as making sourdough bread, icing drinks, having babies, eating watermelon, living through storms, and going to school--in places like west Texas, the Ozarks, northern Virginia, southern Idaho, Batesville, Arkansas and Bullard, Texas. These landscapes of our lives--some of them-become characters too.These are ordinary stories, from ordinary people, in ordinary places. Most every reader will find a story that echoes his or her experiences with just a small (or large) twist.