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Different Times
Told in episodes, each chapter of "Different Times" is a key moment in the education of a teenage rebel, featuring the small-town villains and heroes that individually influence our narrator’s coming-of-age as a youth in mid-1980s Northwestern Ontario.
Fisher Sheffield. The Cosmopolitanos. Mr. Turtlebraid. Enoch Duke. Reverend Billy Mitchell. Doug Gardner. Officer McCluskey. Jimmy Joseph. Mel Famey. Harvey. Dozer. Lord Zechner. These are a few of the iconic characters that you will meet in the pages of "Different Times".
So grab a peanut butter sandwich, and head to the cigarette vending machine in the high school lobby. Even if you never took a typing class, or collected pennies
in a UNICEF box, this novel is for you. But if you remember the lingerie section of the Sears Christmas Wish Book, or hitch-hiking down to the Brewers Retail to return a case of empties, this novel is definitely for you!
Fisher Sheffield. The Cosmopolitanos. Mr. Turtlebraid. Enoch Duke. Reverend Billy Mitchell. Doug Gardner. Officer McCluskey. Jimmy Joseph. Mel Famey. Harvey. Dozer. Lord Zechner. These are a few of the iconic characters that you will meet in the pages of "Different Times".
So grab a peanut butter sandwich, and head to the cigarette vending machine in the high school lobby. Even if you never took a typing class, or collected pennies
in a UNICEF box, this novel is for you. But if you remember the lingerie section of the Sears Christmas Wish Book, or hitch-hiking down to the Brewers Retail to return a case of empties, this novel is definitely for you!
167 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2025
5 people want to read
About the author
Emmett Grogan
6 books39 followersEugene Leo "Emmett" Grogan was a founder of the Diggers in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California. The Diggers took their name from the English Diggers (1649-1650), a radical movement opposed to feudalism, the Church of England and the British Crown.
The San Francisco Diggers were a legendary group that evolved out of two radical traditions that thrived in the Bay Area in the mid-1960s: the bohemian/underground art/theater scene, and the New Left/civil rights/peace movement.
The Diggers combined street theater, direct action, and art happenings in their social agenda of creating a Free City. Their most famous activities revolved around distributing free food ("Free because it's yours!") every day in the park, and distributing "surplus energy" at a series of Free Stores (where everything was free for the taking.)
The Diggers coined various slogans that worked their way into the counterculture and even into the larger society — "Do your own thing" and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" being the most recognizable.
The Diggers inspired Abbie Hoffman to undertake a similar venture on the Lower East Side of New York City during the mid-1960s (although Grogan ultimately saw Abbie Hoffman as a lifestyle poseur, as described in Emmett's memoir of the late 1960s).
Grogan's penchant for personal myth-making and distrust of the mainstream media resulted in few details of his life being reliably recorded. His 1972 autobiography, RINGOLEVIO (A LIFE PLAYED FOR KEEPS), is filled with embellishments and large portions of his pre-Digger life appear to be outright fabrications.
This flexibility with the truth was part of Grogan's larger social and political agenda, and was meant to further Digger ideals, to whit, the use of his name (alternately, "Emma Grogan") as a community pseudonym, in pursuit of social justice activities as a member of the Diggers: "Emmett Grogan" is code for anti-establishment; the outlaw ethos in literary and other artistic endeavors.
Emmett Grogan sang back-up with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on "Mr. Tambourine Man" written by Bob Dylan. Dylan dedicated his 1978 album Street Legal to Grogan. After the success of RINGOLEVIO, Grogan was also the author of FINAL SCORE, a (not very good) crime thriller.
On April 6, 1978, 35-year-old Emmett Grogan was found dead on an F Train subway car in New York City, the victim of a heart attack possibly induced by chronic heroin use. This has been disputed and alternative theories exist.
On April 6, 2018, an announcement was made regarding the forthcoming publication of a new novel, TWELVE STORIES. Released October 23, 2018, the privately-published work has gone on to sell over 3000 copies in Canada.
October 17, 2025 will see the publication of a companion volume to TWELVE STORIES, the novel DIFFERENT TIMES, for fans of Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski, Mordecai Richler, Hunter Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and other legendary literary authors, the type of which who are no longer being supported by contemporary publishing.
A celebration of Emmett Grogan’s 80th birthday, alongside the 80th birthday of Jimi Hendrix, was observed on November 28, 2022.
The San Francisco Diggers were a legendary group that evolved out of two radical traditions that thrived in the Bay Area in the mid-1960s: the bohemian/underground art/theater scene, and the New Left/civil rights/peace movement.
The Diggers combined street theater, direct action, and art happenings in their social agenda of creating a Free City. Their most famous activities revolved around distributing free food ("Free because it's yours!") every day in the park, and distributing "surplus energy" at a series of Free Stores (where everything was free for the taking.)
The Diggers coined various slogans that worked their way into the counterculture and even into the larger society — "Do your own thing" and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" being the most recognizable.
The Diggers inspired Abbie Hoffman to undertake a similar venture on the Lower East Side of New York City during the mid-1960s (although Grogan ultimately saw Abbie Hoffman as a lifestyle poseur, as described in Emmett's memoir of the late 1960s).
Grogan's penchant for personal myth-making and distrust of the mainstream media resulted in few details of his life being reliably recorded. His 1972 autobiography, RINGOLEVIO (A LIFE PLAYED FOR KEEPS), is filled with embellishments and large portions of his pre-Digger life appear to be outright fabrications.
This flexibility with the truth was part of Grogan's larger social and political agenda, and was meant to further Digger ideals, to whit, the use of his name (alternately, "Emma Grogan") as a community pseudonym, in pursuit of social justice activities as a member of the Diggers: "Emmett Grogan" is code for anti-establishment; the outlaw ethos in literary and other artistic endeavors.
Emmett Grogan sang back-up with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on "Mr. Tambourine Man" written by Bob Dylan. Dylan dedicated his 1978 album Street Legal to Grogan. After the success of RINGOLEVIO, Grogan was also the author of FINAL SCORE, a (not very good) crime thriller.
On April 6, 1978, 35-year-old Emmett Grogan was found dead on an F Train subway car in New York City, the victim of a heart attack possibly induced by chronic heroin use. This has been disputed and alternative theories exist.
On April 6, 2018, an announcement was made regarding the forthcoming publication of a new novel, TWELVE STORIES. Released October 23, 2018, the privately-published work has gone on to sell over 3000 copies in Canada.
October 17, 2025 will see the publication of a companion volume to TWELVE STORIES, the novel DIFFERENT TIMES, for fans of Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski, Mordecai Richler, Hunter Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and other legendary literary authors, the type of which who are no longer being supported by contemporary publishing.
A celebration of Emmett Grogan’s 80th birthday, alongside the 80th birthday of Jimi Hendrix, was observed on November 28, 2022.
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