That rings a bell, and I believe that is the book. It would be nice if Yangdu could confirm. The year would be correct. That's about the time that he wrote it. I can't remember the name of the elder that he was spending time with. He told me that the book didn't sell well, but it's interesting to me that their are still copies around. I am assuming that most of you know this, but he had an early career as an engineer somewhere, can't remember. I want to say in aeronautics, but my memory is starting to have age related defective properties lately.
I still miss him dearly. I remember, around 1998, I was trying to finish a bachelor's degree. I was straight out of the woods, and had been living in nature for a while. Scared to death on some level, trying to just get enough of some kind of educational validation to make it in society with a "normal enough life" so that I could pursue my other interests and not have to worry about whether or not I could eat. My spirit was still wild and I wasn't sure how to transition back into modern society, with electricity and all that.
Don't laugh, but I literally could not sleep in a house because the electricity would wake me up. I remember going to see my aunt in a suburb and having to grab a blanket and sleeping in her back yard while I visited her, so I could feel at home. Looking back, I must have been an oddity in the neighborhood.
Her husband was scared to death of me (with his morals, he should have been), their teenage daughters were fascinated by someone that didn't spend everyday in a mall, and most importantly, the labrador that also stayed in the backyard was friendly about sharing his space for those couple of days.
Funny, how I could get culture shock without ever leaving the country.
Anyway, Bill understood that, and helped me transition. We talked about the old elder that he had spent time with. That's when he told me about the book. I think at one time he sent me a copy of the cover of it. It's on a broken hard drive on another computer now. Maybe a brown/orange-ish cover. I seem to remember the sunset, maybe it was the southwestern sky.
I hope that I am remembering the book correctly.
