A Teller's Tales

The TownPeople live and grow everywhere. Farmtown U S A is only one such place. Children do all kinds of things, and they do them for all kinds of reasons. And most of the time they are influenced by a special person. Sometimes it is Mom or Dad. Sometimes it is a schoolteacher. And then, sometimes, it just might be a Preacher, drunk or not. "Big city" stuff did not matter to the people in Farmtown U S A. Very little of it concerned us. When politics came into town riding its big white horse rural America still had to sweat for the groceries to feed it. Life was thorough. Some good and some bad. All of it required its own personal sweat. And through it all one attitude prevailed. "A good day is found wherever you "make" it. Seldom, if ever, will you find one pre-made that someone else doesn't already own. Make up your own mind. You will have a good day, or you will not. But it will happen because you ordered it that way! Make the best you can out of what you have, and be honest about it. And never be afraid to be thankful for it." That was us. Farmtown U S A.

John Cole was born in the great state of Kentucky. His Kentucky ancestry is old enough to boast having the first home in the state to have in-house running water, albeit by virtue of a great, great (actually quite a few greats) grandfather inadvertently building his home over the top of a running stream.

After graduation from high school in the state of Ohio, he enlisted (against his Mother's desires) in the United States Marine Corps in 1968. He attended Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, with advanced weapons training at Camp Geiger in North Carolina.

Having enlisted because of his strong desire to serve his country in combat, as the men in his family had done for generations past, John was assigned to a rifle company in Viet Nam and served with later-to-be Senator James Webb of Virginia, lawyer extraordinaire George McMahon of Boston, Judge William Downs of Wyoming, Dale Wilson of North Carolina, and Francis Karst of South Dakota, among so many others. Memories of Marines with names like Mac, Cannonball, and Gunner have had a profound influence through the years. Always interested in writing, John has dedicated his work to the plight of the American combat veteran-America's "true" Heroes.

Through personal experiences, and the experiences of those with whom he served, he tries to highlight, if you will, the feelings and hardships suffered by veterans while in combat, and the many more hardships encountered after they return home.

He often says that each of the thoughts he puts on paper comes with its own teardrops, descendants to those same teardrops shed by America's earliest patriots, and that it has been such teardrops that have helped to keep patriotism alive and well down through the tumultuous pages of American History.