The View from Brindley Mountain is a memoir of a place and a time: the place-the sandy, pine-forested hills of northern Alabama; the time-a span of two decades embracing the nineteen forties and fifties. This was an era of hardships brought on by world war, but also a time of rebirth and prosperity. On the surface today, the place seems little changed beyond the network of paved roads and ubiquitous, gaudy shopping malls. But time has wrought a remarkable transition in the local ethos. Gone are most remnants of a simpler lifestyle, combining the joys of civic solidarity and family reunions with the rough and tumble existence on a hard-scrabble farm. Gone are the childhood games and the innocence born of geographic and ethnic isolation. For one well-journeyed native son, the limited view from Brindley Mountain has morphed into a world-view with limitless possibilities.