Was That Thunder ?: A Memoir Of Pro-life Rescue, 1988-1997 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780986101069)

James H. (for Howard) Trott, has published five volumes of his own poetry and is co-editor with his wife, Roseann, of A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century. (2nd edition, 2006) In addition to his poetry, he has published a novel about the Salem witch trials, A Gallows Set Upon a Hill, and Trott All Day: a compendium of anecdotes about other persons named Trott. The author was raised in Montana, son of an artist/wheat farmer from New England, and an intellectual farm-girl. Though a small-town westerner, he attended Harvard College, which he generally disparages except in that he met his wife there. His study was chiefly older forms of English literature and language. His gurus included William Alfred, Albert Gelpi, "Chaucer" Whiting, and Theodore Morrison. During three years in the US Army, Trott and his wife learned Japanese, and spent nearly two years in Japan, where their first of six children was born. Returning and settling in Philadelphia, Trott was successively a seminary student, an auto mechanic, and a roofer. The last of these evolved into general carpentry which was his occupation for the next three decades. From a liberal Methodist upbringing, Trott's spiritual journey moved through what he calls his conversion at nineteen amidst charismatic Christians, to becoming a conservative Presbyterian bewildered by the challenges of an urban church, in which he was for many years an elder. His hobbies include woodturning, song writing and mushroom hunting. He has been involved for several years in short term Christian missions, teaching Bible and wood-working, in Belize, Central America. Retired from a career as a carpenter and residential contractor, Trott continues to write. He lives with his wife and dog in Philadelphia, occasionally overrun by hoards of the intelligent and beautiful grandchildren.