Frequently, Eric makes passing references to his grandfather's homesteading in Saskatchewan in the early-twentieth century. More detail about what that experience might have been like can be found in Celia Lottridge's historical fiction, Ticket to Curlew, in which Sam Ferrier travels with his father by train from Jericho, Iowa, in 1915, to take up farming two sections of virgin prairie land in eastern Alberta. The family's story continues in Wings to Fly.

The connected themes of growing up in a rural area and being involved in sports are also found in many of Chris Crutcher novels, such as Running Loose and Chinese Handcuffs, as well as in Will Weaver's Billy Baggs' trilogy of Striking Out, Hard Ball, and Farm Team which also contains the theme of a boy's relationship with his farmer father.