Hungry for Wood [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Herb Rhodes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 2004

'Hungry for Wood' derives its title from an Indian translation of the author's hometown of Hoquiam (Washington), a hamlet bordering the big tree country of the Olympic peninsula while being washed by the Pacific Ocean to the westward. Perhaps the story is both a romance of the sea and an epic that coincides with Tom Brokaw's 'The Greatest Generation,' middle Americans, surviving the Depression, going off to win World War II and coming home, rolling up their sleeves and building the greatest nation in the world. Beyond the horizon of Hoquiam lurked a foreboding, militant empire of Japan that poised in 1941 an ominous invasion threat to the writer's homeland. Japanese bullets ultimately would strike down both the author and his father. Adventure anew came with the writer going to Alaska after the war, meeting newspaper investigative reporting challenges and recording exciting wildlife encounters with wolves, moose, bear, and even a friendly seagull across Cook Inlet from Anchorage at Pt. MacKenzie. And of course, then there was Mac, a yellow dog of the North.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Perhaps the most appropriate single word to describe writer Herb Rhodes is the noun courage.At the age of ten, at the apex of the Great Depression, he and his unemployed father went into tall timber country of Western Washington to eke out a meager family living harvesting blackberries, picking sword ferns and peeling cascara bark. Tough gray days of work and rain, but the strenuous outdoor experience and poverty escapade surely tempered him for the pitfalls and ambushes awaiting in life's wings down the road.Hoquiam, an Indian word meaning 'Hungry for Wood', was a bristling lumber hamlet of tooting tugboats, clanking logging trains and whining sawmills. Until the dark cloak of Depression descended. Huddled on the shores of a vast Pacific Ocean, Hoquiam feared invasion by militant Japanese forces with the advent of attack on Pearl Harbor.A recurring dream for the young Rhodes was of Japanese soldiers arriving at his home, ordering his family into the street and shooting his dad. Perhaps this was an omen since during World War II, Nipponese submariners machine-gunned his Dad in a lifeboat after sinking the Liberty Ship on which he served. Four months later Rhodes himself, a Navy gunnery officer with amphibious assault forces fell critically wounded while landing with Marines on D-Day at bloody Iwo Jima.After winning a communications degree at Washington State University, Rhodes came to Alaska where he won a reputation for courageous investigative journalism, purging Anchorage of a corrupt police force in 1948.Rhodes carried anti-corruption banners with his own newspaper, the Great Lander, for sixteen years, winning numerous awards. Four times he was a finalist for Alaskan of the Year. He established the first commercial offset rotary newspaper press in Alaska, a facility that paved the way for many 'bush' communities to establish their own newspaper voices.In 1950 he cut native Spruce and built a log cabin to prove up on a homesite high atop a cliff looking over Cook

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse; illustrated edition edition (July 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588200167
• ISBN-13: 978-1588200167
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,811,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars GREATEST GENERATION PERSONIFIED, June 5, 2001

By 

Richard L. Morgan (Anchorage, Ak USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hungry for Wood (Paperback)

From the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930's through the Battle of Iwo Jima to the settling of Alaska, this book is filled with the sights and sounds of an entire generation. Mr. Rhodes was born into poverty, earned a Purple Heart for wounds on Iwo Jima, and lived the Alaskan dream. Pathos and hilarity, mixed with tragedy and triumph make this book a must reading for fans of "Saving Private Ryan", "The Greatest Generation", et. al.