Review of "Don’t Whiz on a ‘Lectric Fence: Grandpa’s Country Wisdom," by Roy English

 Review of

Don’t Whiz on a ‘Lectric Fence: Grandpa’s Country Wisdom, by Roy English ISBN 0879057556

Five out of five stars

Heard them before, still timeless

 I grew up on a dead-end street on the edge of a small town with cornfields a few houses to the north and west. I also spent a great deal of time at my grandmother’s, where the situation was similar. Just a few more houses before the cornfields started.

 The title of this book brings back memories of my childhood, where the older boys were always trying to talk the younger ones into doing what is admonished against in the title. I was never convinced but heard the screams of another boy that took the dare.

 The sayings in this book are definitely folk, often reminiscent of those of Benjamin Franklin. For example, on page 84 there is the saying, “An ounce of doing with worth a pound of talk.” On page 118, there is the sentence, “It’s best to stop talking once you’ve said all you know.”

 Humorous with a sense of reality and wisdom, this is a book of expressions that you can repeat over and over with no real sense of redundancy.