These stories begin with brief histories that bring the French Peltier and the Scottish Keillor families together. John was the fifth of the twelve children that Wilburn and Barbara Peltier raised on the flat salt grass of Southeast Texas after they married. The life they created for their family in their farm and cattle ranch provided fertile ground and for the life experiences that are shared in these writings.

At the age of nineteen, naive and fresh from the farm, John was drafted into the U.S. Army. After surviving boot camp and medical corpsman training, he found himself in Vietnam. John used his time in the military and its experiences as a backdrop to describe life growing up. Writing this book intensified the realization of the valuable life lesson that his family and the farm and ranch taught him.