When you wake up on a hot July morning in the central Sacramento Valley of California, your first thought is normally, how long it will be before the temperature reaches one hundred degrees, and what am I going to do to deal with it? One of my favorite ways was to go see Mom and Dad. They always had...

When you wake up on a hot July morning in the central Sacramento Valley of California, your first thought is normally, how long it will be before the temperature reaches one hundred degrees, and what am I going to do to deal with it? One of my favorite ways was to go see Mom and Dad. They always had the air-conditioning on at ten o'clock in the morning, so that seemed the best place to cool off for now. I had to pick up the papers they always saved for me anyway. Dad was out in his small backyard garden, cursing the birds for helping themselves to his brand-new tomatoes, and Mom was trying to get Dad to come in and rest; the birds needed to eat too. I picked up a copy of the famous Willows, California, newspaper, the Willows Journal, glancing past the front-page farming stories to the editorial page. Little did I know that when my eyes came to a small article written by a lady from out at Glenn, named Marge Pattison, my life would be changed forever...