You'll like them enormously." You say she's beside you?" Yes." Could I have a word with her? Joanna, isn't it?" Yes. Hang on a mo."He looked enquiring...ly at Joanna who was biting her lip. She nodded albeit a little tremulously. Smiling encouragingly Simon handed her the telephone and took her other hand."Hello, Mrs Carstairs," she said shyly."Hello, Joanna. I hope I didn't upset you firing of all those questions at Simon. It's just that you're the first girl he's ever wanted to bring to meet us. My father was a doctor at Mass General Hospital for twenty years. His colleagues respected him. He had good standing in the community. However, he was too fond of women and alcohol, not necessarily in that order. It nearly destroyed his career more than once. My mother was a police officer, working for the Boston police department. She hated her job and the people she worked with. At some point, she developed a deep hatred for men because she thought they had it easier in this society. And she. Only he would do that. No doubt it was for a number of reasons. 1 being it probably annoyed the hell out of our parents and 2 he was just that sort of guy. To be fair Ryan always was, and will be, the black sheep of the family. He was four years older than me, and at twenty-two seemed more than happy just to laze around the house irritating everyone. I was the complete opposite. At eighteen I was just about to start college and I knew I had a bright future ahead of me. Both our parents were. The following year the locust devastated the wheat and corn crops. As a result there was little bread. Millions of cattle starved or were slaughtered early because the locusts had stripped the hay and grass. It was a situation that would take nearly a decade to overcome under the best of conditions.Those conditions didn’t happen the following year; the seven year drought made an appearance and kept coming back. More cattle and hogs starved and slaughtered. The cheap beef and pork prices in.