Hitchhikers: and other poems and prose ...

Hitchhikers-This collection is about the joy of being alive. It's about the magic of the shimmering summer sun dancing on the surface of a river. It's about that timeless river of liquid gold that stimulates and illuminates our lives. It is about love, laughter, kudzu, companionship, faith and justice. John R. Cooke grew up in the rural South during the 1940s and 50s. He closely observed the birth of rock-n-roll and the societal tsunami precipitated by Brown v the Board of Education. His was a world of gracious tradition, a world of snake and mosquito infested swamps-a world of great pride and great shame. It was a world of countless humming and spinning cotton gins, soul-soothing southern hospitality, a myriad of ramshackled sharecropper shacks, and innumerable little signs saying, "whites only." As a young man Cooke was well acquainted with the land of revivals, honky-tonks, fish-camps, dirt roads, horses, dogs, and guns. "I call this work Hitchhikers," Cooke said, "because I believe that life is a journey. And I believe that we are all here to give one another a lift along the way." Cooke served as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, and after leaving the army he taught History with the University of Maryland (European Division). And then later he taught at Brunswick Community College in Shallotte, North Carolina. He now resides with his wife, Astrid, in Wilmington, North Carolina. He has also published an historical novel entitled Voltaire Six (iUniverse, 2002).