A fun-filled novel about Wally Bearstone, a well-developed six foot six inch-tall, two hundred and forty pound, 18 year old country boy of solid muscle who was born on a large, remote Wyoming ranch during the late 1920s. He learns to build life from what resources are available and to live with what he has.His education consists of stories told by his less-than-truthful father with delusions of grandeur (supplemented by whiskey and fabricated travels to foreign lands) who tells his son that he is the grandson of a great Cherokee Chieftain, when in fact, he has no idea who his own father was. His heritage and name were invented when he was on the lam, just steps ahead of the law in Indiana where he meets Wally's mother, who was twenty years his junior, and the two head for Wyoming. Somewhere his father developed the knowledge to have been called upon by the President of the United States and several great Generals to advise them on a strategy to win WWI. Wally's formal education consists of attending a one-room schoolhouse, until he is needed at the ranch to heave bales of hay.Wally's exposure to family life and affection is garnered from a mother who is only fourteen years older than he, who serves as the rough-house ranch cook. And treats Wally no differently than all the other ranch hands. His only knowledge of the world outside the ranch is from the exaggerated exploits of the raucous and often crude ranch hands who raise him. Towards the end of WWII in 1944, he is convinced that joining the army is his path to fame and fortune, and so, he travels on a Greyhound bus to Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It is the beginning of his journey and exposure to a world of electricity, automobiles and indoor plumbing. The story centers on his hilarious reactions to military structure, his brief and disastrous encounters with high society, and his discovery of friendship and camaraderie, through which he begins to succeed at everything he does. He learns the benefits of guidance, training, discipline and education. He also learns the joys of friendship and the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation of loss. It is an entertaining and often hilarious story of the growth of an individual who, through perseverance, education, loyalty, encouragement and the development of his natural abilities, turns into a man full of honor and patriotism. Through his outrageous exploits, Wally discovers life, love and the joys of living for the moment...carpe diem.