When small-town college girl Lucy comes home for Thanksgiving break, she suspects she will be turkey dropped, or dumped by her high school boyfriend.

Why? She smiled. Especially on family occasions like this, he feels he's been something of a black thumb in the Garden of Life.

For during the fabled Indiana blizzard of ′78, Tom found himself trapped inside the kitchen of the drive-in for three days before his family, and—more to the point—his customers, could reach him.

And notwithstanding that for the space of 12 miles round about Rome, there are neither Cornes nor Wines, nor Village, Plantage, or Cultinage, save onely playne and pastoragious fields;[…]