You may well ask, "Why did you go to all this trouble to recall and record these Memories of your Grassroots?" Let me hasten to reply with another question, "If I did not do this, who would?"

Millions of words have been written, telling of successes in terms of fortunes made and accumulated. This is a success story of a different kind. This is the story of a rural Ontario farm family, ever trying and sometimes succeeding, in building, not a fortune in bank and security investments, but in Life Investments -- building a family and a Life with other Lives.

It might be said "We are each other's 'Life Support System'." It has been my experience that this is the very Nature of Life.

This is the success story of an Ontario family, trying to make the best of a poor, little, rundown, Heritage Farm. In this little book I will try to tell of the dreams, aspirations and struggles from day to day, trying and eventually succeeding in balancing their meager budget.

This is the story of ordinary, everyday, rural folk, living close to and in cooperation with the Natural Elements, in neighbourhoods of Caring and Sharing. This is the story of some of the background environment where the Willowview Muma family began and of my entry into it. This narrative deals mostly about my life as a teenager, early school days, as well as work and play in the natural freedom of a farm. It is my desire that my children and their children share a few intimate details of their Dad's beginning, his thoughts and feelings, and, in general, give them an idea of what made him "tick".