Ready for the Ride - John T. McLeod

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Résumé :
IT WAS A COLD NIGHT in January 1975. Our open Jeep was filled with six rifle-toting Pakistanis as we bounced over the lumpy fields in Bajwat. The slaughter started as soon as we found herds of 15 to 25 wild boars, some big and a lot of little ones. Everyone shot wildly as the driver swerved from side to side squashing as many as he could. The massacre went on for several hours and I soon lost count of the hundreds killed and maimed. My Muslim companions hated pigs with a passion and wouldn't even touch them. At 2:00 a.m. we stopped at a stranger's house, knocked on the door, and when a man finally came to the door, the driver asked if he could give us some hot tea and something to eat. To my surprise, he agreed. Pakistanis, especially in this case, were beyond hospitable. Maybe it was because everyone he could see in the moonlight held a rifle. By then I was almost frozen and glad to step out of the Jeep. How on earth did a midwestern kid like me end up here - in this war-ravaged area of Northeast Pakistan? Ready for the Ride is the autobiography of Wisconsin native, world traveler, Peace Corps Volunteer, Care relief worker, and family man, John T. Mcleod....

Biographie:
JOHN GREW UP in the 1940's and '50's in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a great location between two lakes, a short bus ride downtown and just a few blocks west of the University of Wisconsin where he received his BS-SED degree in 1963. After serving in the Peace Corps in Guatemala, he was graduated from the American Institute for Foreign Trade in Glendale, Arizona in 1967. He lived in nine countries, passed through over 40 more, and since 1985 has resided with his wife, Donna, in Cambria, a small town 45 minutes Northeast of Madison, Wisconsin. In the early 1940's, Madison's homogeneous population was about 70,000 and kids played outside until dark without supervision. It was a simpler time as the four-digit telephone numbers increased to five and then seven. By the time John finished university, the city had nearly doubled in size but was still a great place to live. America was the new superpower, good and evil was black and white, and we were confident in our future. All the advantages the world had to offer were at our fingertips....