Missouri native, Don Alderman, always regretted not visiting his father for one final goodbye on the morning he left town to begin life on his own. That was in 1956. Only months later, in 1957, his father died, and that goodbye was left unsaid. Now, half a century later, the author makes amends in Letters to Jud, a sensitive, funny, and sometimes scary coming-of-age tale of life in a quirky little town at the edge of the Missouri Ozarks. The narrative is told in two dozen letters written to the spirit of the author's father, Jud Alderman, depot agent for the Frisco Railroad. The setting is...