GETTING STARTED

Ron Hipp gives us a look at his ancestors in Europe and follows them as they immigrate to America and establish their lives in and around the little village of Hankinson, in the Dakota Territory. Like most of the country they struggled through WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII—some more successfully than others. His father—motivated by patriotism and poverty—joined the Navy shortly after Ron was born in 1942 and returned from the south Pacific three years later. That’s when Ron’s story really begins. He writes with humor and affection about growing up in the 1950s as part of an imperfect family in a little windswept prairie town in “the exact geographic center of North Dakota. And nowhere is his affection more obvious then when he’s involved in some shenanigan with his friend “Mex” or hunting ducks in the fall with his dad and Mr. Lee.