{"product_id":"in-the-land-of-second-chances-isbn-9780345484987","title":"In the Land of Second Chances","description":"In Ebb, Nebraska, things are pretty much as they were fifty years ago–aside from that coffee shop–and that’s just the way folks like it. Plucky Wilma Porter is the proprietress of Ebb’s only Bed and Breakfast, and she knows everything there is to know in town: the mental state of Clara Tucker Booth Yune, a rich recluse who says only two words at a time; the gossip at Loretta Parson’s Bold Cut Beauty Salon; and the sad series of events that have led poor Calvin Millet to the edge of desperation. Calvin is the owner of Millet’s Department Store, a village mainstay for generations, but many fear that it–and the downtown–won’t survive his terrible run of bad luck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWilma prays for a miracle to save Ebb’s special way of life, but she’s surprised when it arrives in the form of a traveling salesman, if that’s what he is. Vernon L. Moore claims to peddle games of chance, but he sticks his nose in odd places and says things like, “uncertainty is the spice of life.” He is welcomed nonetheless, because he seems to have the power to change minds, save fortunes, and fix broken hearts.“If you’ve been charmed by Jimmy Stewart and the small-town miracles of It’s a Wonderful Life, treat yourself to this unusual little novel full of hope, humor and singular characters.”\u003cbr\u003e–Parade\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A folksy, wise and gently amusing look at the importance of living life to the fullest and not only trusting in chance, but embracing uncertainty as the spice of life.”\u003cbr\u003e–Rocky Mountain News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“By the end of the stranger’s six-day visit . . . Chances morphs from Fried Green Tomatoes into a wisecracking It’s a Wonderful Life.”\u003cbr\u003e–Entertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An accessible, engaging story peppered with characters who are eccentric, conflicted, tragic and humorous.”\u003cbr\u003e–Seattle Post-Intelligencer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Just what the doctor ordered.”\u003cbr\u003e–Detroit News and Free Press\u003cb\u003eGeorge Shaffner\u003c\/b\u003e has worked in the computer industry for twenty years, most recently as CEO or COO of three international computer companies. He is the father of three children, who are all math refugees.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Sad Edge of a Slippery Slope\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My name is Wilma Porter. I own the Come Again Bed and Breakfast, which is  the only B \u0026amp; B in Ebb, Nebraska, and the only one in Rutherford B. Hayes  County that is recommended by two Internet directories. I bought the place  from Clement Tucker, our very own Warren Buffett, who contracted an acute  case of Midlife Crisis about five years ago and decided to build himself a  modern house with all the latest conveniences. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Come Again is a single-turreted, three-story Victorian mansion that  was built by Silas Tucker the Second shortly after the Civil War. There’s  a single, grand oak tree in the front that antedates the house and a black  asphalt driveway leading up to a formal porte-cochere and a little parking  area for my guests. Last year, I had the house painted bone white except  for the roof, which is black. I think the contrast is meaningful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Clara Tucker Booth Yune, Clem Tucker’s older sister and Ebb’s most  prominent recluse, occupies the entire third floor of the Come Again on a  permanent basis. There are six bedrooms on the second floor. I live in the  one that faces the back garden; the other five are for rent. Each bedroom  has its own bathroom; the Cornhusker Suite even has a Jacuzzi. Downstairs,  there’s a living room the size of a tennis court, a parlor for the TV, a  den, which I keep for myself as a rule, and a giant-sized dining room that  will seat sixteen. Except for my kitchen, which is commercial grade, the  entire house is decorated in beautiful old antiques that Clem Tucker left  behind or I bought cheap at estate auctions and refinished myself in the  basement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Like most folks who live in Ebb, I was born right here, but about an hour  after I got my high school diploma I jumped on a bus to North Platte. I  came back with my two daughters after the divorce fifteen years later.  Both girls are grown up and gone now. One is up in Omaha and the other is  over in Council Bluffs, across the river. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    By most measures, Ebb is a small town. It is the county seat, but only two  thousand people live inside the city limits. There’s not a lot to do here  most of the time, and that’s the way we like it. If we need some  excitement, we can drive up to Lincoln. For twenty years, every politician  in this area has been elected on the “No Wal-Mart, no how” platform. We  take a similarly dim view of fast-food franchises, slow-food franchises,  convenience-store franchises, and all other franchises with big, backlit  signs in primary colors. The only exception is the new Starbucks on Main  Street, but Ebb is so small that we only have the one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All the rest of the stores on Main are unique and most of them have been  in operation for more than fifty years. The biggest and most famous is  Millet’s, the last remaining department store in the tri-county region.  Millet’s, which is pronounced like “mill-it” and not like “mill-ay,” sits  right at the corner of Bean Street and Main, where it’s been ever since  Joshua Millet opened it up back in 1920. It has survived the Great  Depression, rural flight, three bank bankruptcies, World War II, a flood,  and God knows how many droughts and tornadoes. Now it is owned and managed  by Calvin Millet, June and Joshua III’s only child. Calvin is a smart,  hardworking young man, and everybody in Hayes County shops at his store as  if it was a patriotic duty, but we’re all afraid that Millet’s will not  survive his run of terrible bad luck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Calvin was a homely baby, bald and sort of wedge-headed, but he grew up to  be tall and handsome in a gangly, fair-haired sort of way, kind of like  Gary Cooper. He was too skinny to play high school football, a form of  religion in these parts, but he studied hard and got good grades even  though he worked in his father’s store. After graduation, he went up to  Lincoln and got himself a four-year degree in accounting, and then he  joined the Air Force to see the world. They sent him to Bossier City,  Louisiana. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Calvin had hardly been gone for any time at all when his parents were  killed in a train accident. I could tell at the funeral that he had  already started to lose his hearing. He’s fine now; he wears tiny little  hearing aids in both ears, but the Air Force had to give him a medical  discharge so he came back home to run the family store. A year or so  later, he married Mary Beth Tucker, Clem’s only child and a bit of an  airhead, but a real beauty and the catch of the county from a financial  point of view. Six months after that, Lucy was born. I know what you’re  thinking, but the human gestation period in rural America is only six  months for the first baby. After that, it’s nine months. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When Lucy Millet was eight years old, she contracted some sort of  neurological disorder. I hear it’s similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease, but  more aggressive and unnaturally painful. Anyway, a real sick daughter was  more than her momma could handle, so she pulled up and left for L.A. Just  disappeared in the middle of the night. Took the Jeep and the dog and the  George Foreman cooker and left Calvin a note saying she was real sorry. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mary Beth’s departure caused quite a buzz at the Quilting Circle. Most of  us are divorcées ourselves, so we aren’t inclined to be critical of any  woman who leaves a man. In fact, we have a support system in place so that  a woman can do it right: counselors, lawyers, day care, even police  protection. But Mary Beth didn’t use the system, and her husband and sick  daughter suffered for it. She hasn’t been welcome in these parts since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Apparently, being a waitress to the stars was not keeping her in the  manner to which she was accustomed, so Mary Beth came home anyway but just  long enough to sue Calvin for divorce. Since she had only abandoned her  husband and sick child in the dead of night, and taken the dog and the  Jeep to boot, the court was sympathetic to her predicament. Calvin now  pays her alimony. In case you were wondering, the judge is married to a  Tucker, once removed. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Little Lucy Millet is the sweetest little blonde-haired girl you have ever  seen and she is smart as a whip, but she isn’t getting any better. For the  last three years, Calvin has flown her all over the country looking for a  doctor who can cure her, but all they’ve done is slow the disease down  and, according to rumor, empty the Millet bank account. Calvin has health  insurance through the farmer’s co-op, just like everybody else in these  parts, but most of Lucy’s treatments have been experimental, and that  means that the HMO won’t pay for them. Unless somebody gets those  insurance companies under control, I figure that two aspirin and   a glass of water will count as a medical experiment before I’m dead. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The tornado hit last month while Calvin and Lucy were away at the Mayo  Clinic. That was too early for tornadoes as a rule, but the weather has  been unseasonably warm all year. Luckily, it was a tiny thing as twisters  go. It missed the town and everything else in Rutherford B. Hayes County  except for Rufus Bowe’s grain silo and Calvin Millet’s place. Actually, it  tore the roof off of Rufus’s silo and dropped it on Calvin’s house—dead  center. I drove out to see what happened with my best friend, Loretta  Parsons, who is Ebb’s sole resident black person and the owner of the Bold  Cut Beauty Salon. Calvin’s home was a sight to see. It looked like a pile  of rubble with a great big aluminum teacup sitting in the middle of it.  You wouldn’t think that anybody’s aim could be that good, not even God’s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After the tornado, Calvin and Lucy stayed with me at the Come Again for a  few days until he found them a cracker-box of a house to rent in Carson,  about fifteen minutes down the road toward the Kansas line. Calvin hasn’t  talked to Buzz Busby about rebuilding yet, even though that place is so  small and so far away from town. I would know for sure if he had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We’re all sad for Calvin Millet and worried sick about poor Lucy—any  caring person would be—but I have to tell you the honest truth: we’re just  as scared of rural America’s variety of the domino theory. If Calvin’s  finances fall apart, then Millet’s Department Store will fail. If Millet’s  goes under, then the county’s political resolve will collapse and we’ll  get a Wal-Mart store one week later—in a ravine ten miles from nowhere  because the land will be dirt cheap. The next thing you know, everybody in  the county will be shopping for bargains in the ravine, so Loretta will  have to shut her doors, and so will the Starbucks and every other place on  Main except for the Corn Palace and the Yune Library. Then the girls won’t  bring their kids back after they get divorced and that will be the end of  Ebb as we know it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    You may think that I’m exaggerating, but this town is perched on the sad  edge of a slippery slope. I went to church and wished to God I could help  in some way, but He sent us a salesman. That’s right, a salesman. At least  that’s my theory. You be the judge.[quote]--Parade","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303354028261,"sku":"NP9780345484987","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345484987.jpg?v=1767729970","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/in-the-land-of-second-chances-isbn-9780345484987","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}