Home Grown Stories & Home Fried Lies is a delightful look at the colorful life of Mitch Jayne and his time spent in - and out - of the Ozarks. From teaching in one-room schools to the Hollywood big time with the Dillards, from small-town radio DJ to TV star on The Andy Griffith Show, from hound man and hunter to lecturer and author, Mitch has done it this time with a book that will have you laughing, crying, muttering to yourself and running down the street to share stories with your best friend. And wait till you see the beautiful illustrations by his wife and partner Diana! Home Grown Stories & Home Fried Lies contains stories and anecdotes of the quriky individuals that helped shape the life of one of America's best storytellers. "Buy this book!" -- The Author's Wife "Every Academic in the universe will make this book required reading" -- Professor of Everything "One of the best storytellers in America" -- Another Wise Person "Simply the best compilation of Ozark humor ever put together" -- Somebody Famous A must-have for any fan or student of storytelling and the wonderful language and persona of the Ozark region. "I have written several books, but this is the first on I have written for the fun of it. I just have all this Ozark funny stuff in my head, circling like the buzzard that ate Wino Fred and can't fly straight... See, fun is pretty much what I had in mind when I wrote all this down. I've lived 70 years on this planet, looking for excuses to laugh, and by the time you're halfway through this you'll know more about what made me laugh than anybody from someplace besides Missouri would neeed to!" Mitch Jayne is one of the founding members of the internationally acclaimed bluegrass band, The Dillards. He is an Ozark writer and lecturer who stirs the soul with his pictures of rural and small-town America. Whether reading from one of his novels or reminiscing about his life on the road as a musician, or perhaps talking about his experiences in the movie and TV industry, his theme invariably comes around to his greatest love: the common man. Mitch Jayne stories will inspire, inform, instruct...but above all else, they make you laugh. Mitch Jayne is arguably America's greatest living storyteller. Mitch Jayne's Definition of The Ozarks: Wonderful old hills, yawning with age and satisfied to lie there comfortably under the sun. Worn down like old hound's teeth, the Ozarks are all done with battles fought by young mountains like the Rockies and the Sierras. The oldest mountains on the continent, the Ozarks are furred with oak and hickory and time, and are as serene about their clear, frisky rivers as old animals are with the new litter playing across their bellies. The Ozarks have captured time in a net and intend to turn it loose when they've measured and weighed it, like some considerate fisherman. The springs of the Ozarks are as clear and deep and startlingly blue as morning glories, the rivers run as transparent as gin, and the people who live in such a place can't help reflecting the satisfaction of it. Ozarkers speak in words as colorful as autumn leaves and use terms as carefully preserved as paw paw jelly or persimmon wine. We laugh a lot because we have been allowed a lot of joy. The Ozarks are the mountains where America chose to store it's nostalgia for the forgotten pioneers, the smoke of hickory fires, the sound of fiddles and the far off cry of hounds. But most of all, the Ozarks is our lasting, bittersweet memory of how most Americans used to be.