<P>Tom is 82-year-old Tom Hartwig, an old-timer best known locally for building and firing homemade cannons. Toiling in a shop that Perry describes as “an antique store stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake,” Tom works from scratch to make everything from shovel handles to parts for a quarter-million-dollar farm equipment. He has an endless reservoir of stories dating back to the days of his prize Model A.</P><P></P><P>Visiting Tom is dominated by the elderly man's equanimity and ultimately by unvarnished tenderness.</P><P></P><P>Tuesdays with Morrie meets Shop Class as Soulcraft as Michael Perry, a middle-aged father of daughters, finds guidance and inspiration in visits with his octogenarian, cannon-shooting neighbor. Visiting Tom celebrates the wisdom, heart, and sass of a vanishing generation that embodies the indomitable spirit of small-town America.</P>