Population: 485 audiobook

Having grown up in a small town, I relate so much to what Mr Perry alludes to in this book (and some of his others): citizens in small communities - like New Auburn, Wis. - do it all. They volunteer at church, they serve on the volunteer fire dept., they help their neighbors...And when bad things happen, the whole community hurts. I loved the stories of small town living, and the characters he introduces us to. What I didn't enjoy as much were the occasional diatribes the author wades off into. Not because he's not entitled to them - it is his book, of course he should share opinion and wax nostalgic. But I have always disliked writers who use language for which I have to use my dictionary to understand. He is a fantastic writer. But the pace of my reading screeches to a halt when he does this and I find myself glossing over those parts. Nevertheless, I find that Mr Perry's writing really grabs me, and this book is a good read. I'm looking forward to more of his work.

If you want to read a literary book on firefighting or small town living then this is the book. Population: 485 is a hilarious and moving collection of essays written about New Auburn, Wisconsin; a town of, yes, you guessed it—485 people. Not only is Michael Perry a skilled writer, he is also a volunteer firefighter/emt, and he captures the chaos and insanity of this world beautifully. Not many firefighters are dedicated to the literary tradition of writing, so it isn’t easy to find such a talented voice to account their day to day lives. Perry is the man. Never have I had more respect for volunteer firefighters than I do now. In New Auburn, rarely are they truly off-duty. They leave work, family, or home at a moment’s notice and even respond to calls alone with no idea of who will show up or when. Regardless of back up, when the beeper goes off Michael Perry goes running, sometimes in spandex cycling shorts, other times in cowboy boots. The rural landscape has dangers all it’s own: an explosively defecating cow or a clan of suspicious drunk rednecks armed to the hilt in the middle of nowhere. Despite the perils, Perry loves small town living, although he does sometimes get a hankering to take off and roam. He describes in warm detail the denizens of his environs and often accounts their deaths as well. In a town as small as New Auburn, everyone knows everyone, and it’s hard to forget the exact curve of road where your neighbor died. Death comes with the territory and Perry does not skirt it. He is a man’s man, but with a sensitive side inclined to philosophize and contemplate all that he is witness to. When he’s not skinning deer or traipsing through a swamp hunting duck, he’s hanging out at the local poetry reading. There’s a touch of Hemingway here, although unlike the American Master, Perry is expert at making fun of himself and bringing the “heroes” down to earth. He recounts the foibles, follies, and mishaps of the firefighters who respond in the middle of the night for almost no pay in hilarious detail. One minute Perry had me laughing out loud; the next I was struck silent by his ruminations on death, loss, and the intangible bonds of love that hold the entire town together. Perry can fight fire AND write. An awesome combination.

Perry recounts how he moved back to his very small Wisconsin hometown and reintegrated himself into the community by becoming a volunteer firefighter and first responder. This is an amazing book. The stories Perry tells contain dozens of moments that are both hilarious and heart-wrenching—often within sentences of each other. The details about firefighting and working as an EMT are fascinating, as are the portraits Perry draws of various figures in the community—and of the community itself. He actually made me nostalgic for my tiny hometown—which, although twenty times bigger than Perry’s, still seemed stifling to me when I lived there. Perry’s writing revives in me a sort of innocent belief in American communities, although there’s nothing naïve or whitewashed about his portrayal of his town and its people. Infrastructure crumbles; petty cruelties persist; bad things happen, often to good people. But Perry, it seems, has found whatever secret thing it is that makes it worth it to go on. And there’s a taste of it here between these pages.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong; you can go home again. Michael Perry comes home to New Auburn, Wisconsin, population 485, and reintegrates himself back into society by joining the local volunteer fire department. This is my third read by Perry and as always the armchair philosopher takes precedence in the narration. On his brothers, also volunteer firefighters:Our pursuits and avocations have little in common. They drive log trucks, I sit in a chair trying to herd words. Put us in a row and turn our palms up--mine are soft and clean. There's your story.On the human condition:Children are fascinating, and surprising, and at their best, heavenly sprites, but before you go in too deeply for the idea that the world would be a better place if we were all more childlike, try sticking three kids in one room with two toys. You'll witness conflict-resolution techniques synthesizing the very worst of the Marquis de Sade and the World Wrestling Federation. The world is like it is because, on the whole, we tend to act like children.Describing the ending to his most recent relationship:...a relationship that ended in a way that simply brings to mind the word abbatoir.Ouch. Keenly observant, painfully acute, Perry scatters gems like that on at least every other page. There are belly laughsI was chugging along here last fall when I was forced to the shoulder by a pack of Amish youths cruising down the hill on RollerBlades. There is really no way to prepare for that sort of thing.some firefighter trivia…it is widely agreed that when [Benjamin Franklin] formed Philadelphia’s Union Fire Company in 1736, he set the organizational standard for all volunteer brigades to follow…Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Benedict Arnold, James Buchanan, and Millard Fillmore were all volunteer firefighters. The first female volunteer firefighter of record was a slave named Molly Williams. The juxtaposition of “volunteer” and “slave” produces a certain irony.some seriously “eeyEEW” momentsWe picked up a sick little old lady. She was on the floor in her nightgown, hands clenched over her belly. We carried her out on a backboard and put her on the cot. Halfway to the hospital she relaxed a little, and a basketball-sized mass of flesh rolled out from under her nightgown and thumped to the floor. It remained attached to her abdomen by a thin, fleshy umbilicus. Arnold and I exchanged a glance across the cot. Then Arnold picked the thing up and popped it back under the nightgown like ti was the most natural thing in the world. Never said a word. The lesson was twofold. Number one, failure to detect a free-floating tumorous mass the heft and circumference of a supermarket watermelon reflects a certain inattention to basic patient-assessment protocols. Number two, be cool. And if you can’t be cool, act cool. The patient will draw comfort from your demeanor. Another day, your countenance should say, another little old lady sprouting giant flesh balls.and some interesting local errataDepending on how the glacier treated your farm, picking rock is a rite of spring here. When we were growing up, the farmers used to hired gangs of kids…to slog along behind hay wagons in the plowed fields, pitching rocks on the wagon bed until it sagged and the wheels pressed deep in the dirt. When it was full, the farmer hauled it to the end of the field or the edge of a swamp and dumped the load. You can still see these cairns all around the county, the smooth brown and pink and tan stones in mounds the size of a Volkswagon.The book begins with one death and ends with another, both agonizing because inherent in being a volunteer first responder is the fact that you will be responding to scenes involving people you know, and sometimes, people you love. …most of all, she is one of us. When we gather around her we are firefighters and first responders and EMTs, but we are also neighbors, classmates, family. If she doesn’t make it, I’m going to see her parents around town.My favorite story comes from the chapter "Running the Loop," where Perry runs a regular loop around New Auburn and passes one story after another. This one is about Herbie Gravunder who died at 87 the year before Perry writes this book, and who lived an out loud life, up at four a.m. to milk his cows, drove the school bus, the milk truck, the truck that oiled the county roads, put up light poles, owned and ran the local blacksmith shop. In between work he bought a used hovercraft and armed it with a Model T horn. It didn’t go far or fast but he and his cousin Delmar had some fun with it. Later Herbie bought a crashed airplane and fixed it up enough that he could taxi it around his hayfield. He’d give you a ride if you asked him.Herbie is America, where you work hard but you live the life you want. So is Perry, not without pain because pain comes with the territory, but always with enjoyment and gratitude. Highly recommended.

I can't believe I've missed this author until now. It's personal history, family dynamics, small-town character, philosophy and humor. Perry writes poetically about his life after returning to his home town. The chapter on "Structure Fire" included several of the passages that struck me in this book: "...fire is anything but brutish. It is light-footed and shamanic, dancing between the visible and invisible, undoing matter one collapsed molecule at a time, wreaking utter destruction with a touch softer than breath. Its poor cousins, wind and water, are one-dimensional rubes by comparison." Gorgeous. Perry can sometimes lay on the philosophizing pretty heaving, but I liked that he calls himself on it too.

This little gem of a book is about New Auburn, in the north-western corner of Wisconsin, land where farms alternate with forests and lakes, where people coexist with deer and the occasional bear. Garrison Keillor's "Lake Wobegon" is a humorous reflection on such a community, and New Auburn is indeed just across the state line from St. Paul, Minnesota. This book, however, is about the real thing. Michael Perry's words are clear, terse, factual and unpretentious, yet he is also a poet, so his book is rich in reflection, beauty, emotion and wider meanings. Perry grew up on a farm near New Auburn, and trained elsewhere as an emergency medical technician (EMT). After returning to town, still a bachelor, he joined the fire department and rescue squad, in part to help re-integrate with the community. Here is a collection of stories from that association, describing the bond which exists among fire fighters, and between them and their small community. Both men and women participate: the writer's mother is among the active members, as are his two brothers. The stories are a pleasure to read. Fire fighters and rescue squad members deal with emergencies, and those do not always end happily: the job can be demanding, frustrating and even dangerous. The moment one hears the siren, one is expected to drop whatever one does and rush to the station, because speed is essential, distances can be great out in the country, and in winter the brutal cold makes rescue work even more difficult. At the scene of a fire, one must judge where to enter, what tools to use, when bold steps are called for and when it is wiser to retreat. And with no doctors around, the EMT is often the only source of medical help for a highway accident victim or for an elderly citizen in trouble. A thorough training with a large array of professional tools is expected, because anything the EMT cannot provide requires an airlift by helicopter to a regional hospital. Some lives are saved, some are not, and death is a constant haunting presence. Yet you will enjoy reading it all. In the big city, amid a teeming population, one can still be very, very lonely. Out in rural Wisconsin, it seems, every life is cherished, every person stands out. Life is neither easy nor simple, but it has a wholesome quality often missing in urban life. If the view from your window is dominated by brick, concrete and asphalt, read "Population 485" and breathe in a fresh atmosphere.

This book is kind of a hybrid. There are plenty of wonderful literary works written on the "essence of small-town American life", both past and present. There are also plenty of gut-wrenching, heart-pumping Fire and EMS books for the adrenaline-junkie who doesn't care to put in a semester at the local JC for an EMT license or Firefighter-I academy (if you want a couple references check out Rescue 471 or Firefighters: Their Lives in Their Own Words, or perhaps the new one coming out soon by Shawn Grady).This book tries to be a "jack of all trades" and cover both realms at once. Surprisingly, Perry does a pretty damn good job of it, too.One of the chief complaints I hear/read about this book, though, centers on its dual nature. People were looking for a sorta modern-day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn-sorta "essay on small town America", or perhaps a Midwestern Rehash of Walden, and find jolting scenes from ER, Third Watch, or Rescue Me, thrown in and dissected for flavor. How one can be surprised by this when the by-line is "Meeting your neighbors one siren at a time", I haven't a clue, but apparently at least a few have managed.As to expecting the tone of the writing to be ... what? "Hick-ish"? "Aw shucks, hyuck-hyuck"? And the subsequent surprise so many show at actual cogent English and coherent sentences... wow. Now I just have to ask, and tell you to ask yourself: is that an issue with Perry...or an issue with you and your preconceived notions?Rather than blast Perry for not fitting a prejudgment, why don't you just re-examine that prejudice?Even Perry himself admits in the book to a couple of occasions of trying to "over-intellectualize", and the subsequent figurative face-plant that ensued: the essay he wrote and midway through began a paragraph with "Heraclitus said...", eliciting the groans and dismay of his audience.In short, it's a glimpse into small-town Midwest America, with an unusual angle... if you're here looking for "heart-pounding ER-style excitement, call-to-call-to-call", you're in the wrong place. Likewise, if you're looking for Walden framed in the midwest, this probably won't be your cuppa joe either. But it's good writing, and good reading, if you can keep your mind open and shoo your expectations of what it SHOULD be away.

At first glance, the concept of reading the tales of a volunteer firefighter in rural Wisconsin seemed an odd choice of reading material for me. However, I decided to give Population: 485 a shot and I was thrilled with the experience. Michael Perry does an excellent job of presenting a cross-section of small-town life through vivid characters and an attention to detail and perspective that I rarely find in modern authors.Perry's light-hearted humor, self-deprecation, and appreciation of time, place, and setting make this a truly enjoyable read. His recollection of his train of thought while on a late-night jog in mid-winter, or his tale of being summoned by LifeAlert to save an overheated pet goose, or his adventures with his firefighting partner, Bob, the one-eyed Beagle, all add up to a relatable, introspective take on what it means to belong to a place.For those familiar with life in small-town America, there will no doubt be many "Ahhhh" moments when you can perfectly relate to his experience. However, even for those from the city or completely foreign cultures, this book will give you some perspective on how much people have in common no matter their background. Additionally, it gives life and character to what may seem on the surface to be a boring, deserted little outpost in the middle on nowhere. Perhaps it is the perfect balance, or tension, between Perry's sensitive, bookish, intellectual analysis of rural life and his rough, rugged, dirty overalls experience there that make this book so enjoyable.

Having read his book Truck: a Love Story, I was interested in reading more. This book actually was written before Truck and contains chapters about his work both as an EMS and as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of New Auburn, Wisconsin. Perry puts it all out there, including the sad, happy, embarrassing, and comic. He talks about working with his brothers and mother, how his work as a firefighter linked him back to his community, and shows a variety of personalities in both his coworker and his fellow citizens. This is a story of a small town, human relationships, and self discovery.Perry is an excellent writer who finds the humour in every situation and yet doesn't take advantage of his insight to belittle others or make himself a hero.This is a book to read slowly and savour every bit, which is what I did, carrying it around for a long time in my purse, reading it in stolen moments when waiting for appointments or taking a quiet moment for myself. I'm now lending it to my dad, who enjoys Perry just as much as I do.

I love my adopted state more because of this book. Perry artfully tells of life in a small Wisconsin town and the delicate dance of both being aware of and even participating in “higher society” and yet living among common people; loving country music, fishing, and firefighters but also five-star dining in NYC, modern dance, and literature. He’s also a master of humorous descriptions of common people and their actions in the grand tradition of Twain, Thurber, and and I belly laughed constantly throughout.

I first read this book in 2006 and made this note: one of the most perfectly written memoirs I’ve ever read. I feel the same way this time through. Perry is a fabulous writer in every sense of the word - he lacks pretension, his stories are interesting and heartfelt, and the prose is simply gorgeous. Love love love this book.