Growing Up True Lessons from a Western Boyhood

In Growing Up True, Craig Barnes shares his stories of growing up in rural Colorado during & after World War II. As the youngest of three boys, & an imaginative one at that, he dreamed of many a swashbuckling adventure far beyond Colorado's Highline Canal. But the lessons & demands of real life always nipped at the edges of his fantastic dreams. Barnes's mother told him that he would develop moral character if he would carry water to her maple saplings. His father held that a small person "... should learn to plan ahead, think a problem through, be lighthearted, cheerful, ready to help whenever needed. It would also be good to do the algebra homework, & geography, too, & it would be good to clean the barn ... ." Written in a compellingly simple style, Growing Up True evokes the struggles of a boy stretching for manhood. Whether describing the dares of taunting schoolmates, his perfectionistic father's attempts to true a fence by adjusting the posts just a "whisker more," a prissy aunt caring for a freezing lamb in the family kitchen, or his own coming to terms with a suicide, Craig Barnes offers readers a hopeful message in which integrity, hard work, kindness, & tolerance remain bedrock.

Craig Barnes grew up on the plains of Littleton, Colorado, in the '40s and '50s. Over time, he has been an essayist, playwright, newspaper columnist, former NPR commentator, teacher, trial lawyer, politician, international negotiator, and horse trainer and rancher. He ran for Congress in Denver, negotiated nuclear issues in the Kremlin, facilitated peace talks between warring Armenia and Azerbaijan, and negotiated the first four-country water agreement in the history of Central Asia. Most recently, his play, Queen Elizabeth I, was produced to stand-up acclaim in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives with his wife