Author Steven Gardner spent his adult life in Southern California high tech. But whenever his friends shared a story about growing up in sun-soaked suburbia, he'd counter with one of his own from his youth in 1960s back country Vermont that no one could quite believe. Pieces Of Rope Too Short To Keep collects all those memories of a childhood filled with beaver dams, raccoon traps, drunken pigs, hitch hiking adventures, baseball dreams, bare handed trout catching, broken down cars, woodpecker shootings and head-butting goats into a rollicking picture of an upbringing not many people have experienced. And to top it off, it's probably all true.