Beyond Barron
, the second volume of a memoir initiated by the publication of
Back to Barron
(in 2008), encompasses captivating humor and telling detail to narrate the story of author Van Tassel and his wife's life together and their kindred careers. It focuses on schools and colleges and universities attended, taught at, and visited; homes purchased, built, modified, and redecorated; vehicles and pets acquired; and travels and forms of recreation that served as accompaniments to their academic careers and enhancements of family life. Following the saga of attending three very different high schools, a chunk of time at St. Olaf College culminates in Van Tassel's earning a BA degree and his meeting a girl at a Fourth of July festival whom he falls in love with and marries that fall. Upon completing a grad degree at the University of Iowa, he takes an instructorship at Concordia College, while Rhoda becomes a "Cobber" and earns two more years toward her BA degree prior to the couple's moving to California, and Chapman College for a year, where he teaches and she finishes her BA. Between colleges and squeezed in during the summer, they indulge in a grand tour of Europe, chronicled in the author's
Journey by the Book
(2022). He with a PhD and she an MA, they move to Pacific Lutheran University, during which eleven-year tenure they have two children and build a house. In vignettes, anecdotes, catalogs and annotated lists reminiscent of an epic, and as scenes in a drama, the book traces in bas-relief the Van Tassels' scholarly, administrative, and pedagogical achievements, additional moves (to Muskingum College, in Ohio, later to Cal State San Marcos, and, upon retirement, back to Minnesota), and recreational activities, including acting in plays, u-picking fruit and harvesting organically-grown vegetables, skiing, swimming, and boating as well as numerous trips and adventures within the US and beyond.