Who Knows?

Part autobiography and part reflection on the meaning of life and living.

Extensively autobiographical, the book describes a difficult childhood and the author's attempts to recover from it. Work and education are described in some detail, generously salted with comments and questions about various issues relating to these things. The tone is conversational. Many adventures, and a late-in-life marriage, offer redemption as the author overcomes early problems and settles in to a happy old age.

Larry W. Yother was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1937 and after college at the University of Wyoming joined the U.S. Air Force and was sent to Syracuse, New York, and Misawa, Japan. The Japanese treated him extremely well and he grew to love the country. After some restlessness, including a few years in Canada, he became a librarian in Hartford, Connecticut, and developed a comprehensive set of library automation systems. He married at 46 -- waiting until he could get it right, he said -- and the marriage has been long and very successful. He and his wife traveled extensively, but now in old age he mostly watches movies on television and wastes a lot of time doing nothing. Most weekends he is still able to enjoy a dry martini, but these are smaller than they used to be.