Publisher's Synopsis
Imagine that you are ten years old and that your parents take you to another state in the middle of the night, far away from friends and family. You sleep in a bedroom with no door, a room that is unheated even in the dead of winter. You are only twelve years old when your parents essentially sell you into indentured servitude with a local farmer, retaining your wages to supplement the family's income. Your sister does the cooking, the laundry, the yard work, and the housekeeping. The two of you maintain the family's garden and take care of all of the farm animals, cleaning, feeding, watering, milking, and slaughtering. The adults in your life tell you that you are stupid, soft, lazy, and destined for failure, apparently believing that the highest and best use of children is for unpaid labor. You are berated, slapped, punched, and threatened if you try to stand up for yourself. You leave the homestead only to go to school, to church, and to the grocery store. You are not permitted to use the telephone and you have limited contact with the outside world. You violated the family code "what happens here is no one else's business" when you sought help from one of your teachers at school. That teacher, embarrassed by your disclosure, turned his back on you and said there was nothing he could do. This shouldn't have happened in America in the 1970s, but it did. First-time author John Vernon breaks his silence as he presents the gripping tale of his journey of self-determination. From his humble beginnings in isolation and heartbreak through the present time, John ultimately distinguished himself in service to our country. He details the ways in which the kindness of strangers, chance meetings, and serendipitous circumstances showed him that he could step out of his circumstances and into the fullness of a life well-lived. John says, "I wrote this book for two reasons: First, I wrote it for those whose vision of the future is full of bleakness and despair. I hope that my story will inspire them to create the future of their dreams. Second, if given the opportunity, my dream is to continue serving my country in public office, where I can truly be a representative of the people."
