The Killing of Dr. Albrecht Roscher

His next memories were of Bob Metz, Mr. Metz?s nephew, a role model for a young boy growing up on a farm who provided him with a positive attitude, comfort, care, and devotion following a tragic accident.

Other powerful memories were of his father, a former farmer on Sharon Mountain and a First Selectman of the Town of Sharon, and of his grandfather, a builder, carpenter, and cabinet maker in Sharon.

Throughout the book there are stories about things few people know about. Who ever heard of a cowpound on Sharon Mountain, or knew about the reason for the Town Poor Farm? Who knew the town of Sharon had a 3rd District one room school house located on Sharon Mountain? Who has ever heard of swimming pools for pigs?

The author writes about simple things of the time such as the three different types of haymaking that don?t exist today; about raising calves, working with horses for plowing fields, bringing milk to the milk stands, feeding twenty-two cats at once and about raising a bull calf for a short while before realizing it was a heifer calf, who went on to become the best milker in the herd.

Funny things happened in those seventeen years; such things as a black snake he wrapped in a typewriter and a dead woodchuck he hid under the front seat of a friend?s old pickup truck, a full fledged manure fight he had with his brother, and the throwing of the baby sitter?s shoes out in the snow.

Shortly after Alysa Cummings was diagnosed with breast cancer, she sat down at her laptop computer and began keeping a journal. Over the two years of her cancer treatment, Alysa continued writing as she moved through the healthcare delivery system:

I fantasized that I could somehow use my computer to craft a story with an upbeat next chapter or fairy tale happily-ever-after ending. Looking back, that?s the only explanation I can come up with, why I felt so compelled to create a record of my day-to-day experiences as a cancer patient. The one thing I could control were these words that crowded each other as they quickly appeared on my computer screen; these stories that flowed through my fingertips in such a manic rush; these traumatic adventures that happened to me in a place I began to call CancerLand.

CancerLand: it?s this parallel universe, I swear, separate and apart from the rest of life as I once knew it. How did I end up in this wacky Bizarro World filled with freaky language and even stranger rituals?

Gradually her daily journal entries became vignettes and poems that were published on the OncoLink website. Greetings from CancerLand, a collection of Alysa?s writing from 2002-2012, charts one breast cancer survivor?s journey as she discovers the power of writing to move her recovery forward.