The Legend of Juggin' Joe

ISBN: 1411625889 

Joe Jeckel was born tenth out of eleven children on a hardscrabble farm in the
hills of upstate New York. His parents, Doc and Isabel, didn't have much, but
they managed. Joe was one of those who had a real talent for getting in trouble.

One day, in his early teens, Joe gathers up some jugs to hold what comes out of
the family still, a popular pastime. The only way to determine if a jug is empty
or full is to blow across the top of it, which Joe demonstrates for Doc, who is
totally blown away. To make noise from a jug is easy, but the breath control and
lung power to make music come out of a jug, which Joe has plenty of, is a gift
right from God.

At the local county fair, the jug band led by a man named Bug-Eye seems to have
a lock on the title of Best Band. That is, until Doc's band, with Joe on jug,
takes the stage. After the thunderous applause subsides, Bug-Eye himself
declares Doc's band the winner. At the fair, Joe meets Florentine Sheppard,
daughter of the local Parson. Many men have tried, and failed, to get her
attention; now she only has eyes for Joe.

At a wedding celebration for one of Joe's older sisters, he and Florentine are
caught behind the barn doing something that certainly looks compromising. Parson
Sheppard angrily forbids any further contact between them, and it takes Doc and
Isabel a long time to calm down enough to even listen to Joe's apologies.

A famous fiddle player, having heard about Joe's talents, offers to take Joe on
tour with him. Joe becomes a national celebrity and appears on all the talk
shows (three Gold Records certainly don't hurt). At the height of his
popularity, during a home visit, Joe announces that he has joined the Army and
will become a mechanic in Berlin. He meets President Reagan just before his
famous speech in West Berlin. Having done his time, he comes home, but hasn't
lost his love for Florentine.

This is a very interesting story, told with humor and real emotion. The unique
thing is that the book is written in "country speak"; if it was set in the
South, I would say that it is written in a Southern accent. The upstate New York
"accent" extends to the biography of the author in the back and the information
on the copyright page. Get used to the flow and style of the story, and this is
short, and really worth reading.

The above review was contributed by:  Paul Lappen: CLICK TO VIEW Paul Lappen's Reviews