Told with humor and affection, String Too Short to Tie tells the story of the powerful ties of land and family. The author, called Dalinda in this memoir, rumbles down the dusty Texas road where she grew up, struggling with ambivalence toward proud family and friends who stayed while she left. Life has changed since the bustling time of the ’50s and ’70s when Buddy Holly was a sensation down the road in Lubbock and her rural town of Tumbleweed bustled with energy, plentiful water, and her beloved farm families prospered. What will she and her classmates have in common as they work to plan their 50^th class reunion? How will they feel about the Midwestern teacher she became versus the Texas farm girl they knew? How will she ever work with her headstrong sister to figure out how to honor their family farm?

Laugh and cry as Dalinda works to resolve conflicting values over land, entitlement and lifestyle, unearthing small nuggets of delight and redemption that come when each of us tumble back home and remember a time when we were all “raised with guilt and red Jell-O.”