Rootabaga Country

The Rootabaga Stories begin with a little non-traditional (or was it traditional?) family who lived a little traditional life. Everything was always the same as it always was for Gimme the Ax, whose name says everything about him (or does it?), and his two children, whose ancestry is not fully explained. Apparently they just arrived on the scene and, despite his laissez faire method of parenting, they were good and curious children and never got in trouble.

But for some reason Gimme the Ax and his two children Please Gimme and Ax Me No Questions woke up one morning dissatisfied with their present way of life.

"It is too much to be too long anywhere," said the tough old man, Gimme the Ax.

The children agreed and, after a huge Midwestern small-town garage sale, they packed a few necessities and went straight to the train station, where the sleepy-eyed Ticket Agent offered them the choice of a ticket to go away and come back, or a ticket to go away and never come back. They choose the second. The whole family was leaving together—it was a non-traditional leaving-home story

And so begin the stories of the Rootabaga Country. In point of fact, after the first chapter the father and his kids never come into the story again, aside from a bit part Gimme the Ax plays in the last chapter of the second section.

I'm kind of curious how they fared, but I don't really miss 'em that much because there are enough other people to pay attention to. Plenty of human people—wistful people, greedy people, worried people, confused people, lots of kinds of people and none of them ordinary. Plenty of non-humans—Zizzies, flongboos, blue foxes, shadow animals, corn fairies. There are lots of interesting characters in the Rootabaga Country. Not deep, but alive and kicking—kind of like the people in old myths.

Hmmmm... Rootabaga Country as Midwestern mythology. What do you think?

Read 'em for yourself.