In 1942, a 19-year-old University of Kentucky biology student began keeping a logbook at the camp he and a buddy had built along Salt River in central Kentucky. Part field journal, part diary, it chronicles the outdoor adventures of a group of young men in rural America just before they are called to serve during World War II. Their story is a reminder of a time when our lives were more rooted in the natural world, before a global war and the industries and public institutions it spawned accelerated our dislocation from our homes and our land.After serving as a lieutenant in Patton’s army, the author, John C. Goodlett, continued his studies as a biologist at Harvard Forest and eventually accepted a position as a plant geographer at Johns Hopkins University. His life was cut short at age 44, but his academic contributions and these earliest journal notations reveal a man committed to the study of the natural world and the joys it offers its human inhabitants.