TeeTee’s World Adventure: Traveling the Magical Tracks

There is a kind of coffee that tastes like home, a kind of frost on the trees that feels like a gift from God and a kind of memory that stays with you for ninety-seven years and counting. Phyllis Johnson has all three and in this book, she shares them. Raised on an Iowa farm and shaped by Scandinavian roots, threshing seasons and a one-room schoolhouse, Phyllis went on to spend thirty-three years teaching second graders, including a rather unforgettable hamster named Hammie. Along the way she raised a family, buried a beloved husband, weathered sugar beet fields and washing machine disasters and found, again and again, that the small things were never really small at all. These are stories of coffee pots and cornstalks, of lutefisk suppers and lawnmowers, of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, of faith quietly kept and gratitude freely given. They are funny when they need to be, tender when it counts and honest about both the hardships and the blessings of a long life well lived. The Archive of an Ordinary Life is proof that ordinary, looked at closely enough, is anything but. It is a gift from a woman who spent her whole life noticing and who has finally taken the time to write it all down.