Many a lucky newspaper has on its staff a columnist with a gift for portraying everyday life -- observations that make us smile, cry, and reflect on our place in our community and our country; essays that assume an honored place on the family refrigerator or make their way into an envelope to be sent to friends and loved ones. The stories of award-winning newspaper columnist David Chartrand land on American refrigerators because he writes about such universal themes as love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and death. Essays run the gamut from coaching a youth basketball team to living through the death of a sibling to the region's preoccupation with weather -- all perceived with honesty and humor. As the publisher of the Thomasville (NC) Times put it, "David Chartrand writes about things that real people talk about over the dining room table."A View From the Heartland is a scrapbook of everyday life as viewed through the lens of the Midwest. This is not just a regional title, however. Chartrand's lens may be pointed at this swath of the country's heart, but through it we glimpse the extraordinary character and resilience of ordinary people who work, worship and raise families all across America. Read Less