Tom Jensen is getting old and becoming obsolete at his youth driven corporation. As things go downhill, he remembers a former life, a life before he joined the rat race. This was a life of simple pleasures and relevance. It was spent with his artist wife and their dear friends, Mike and Stephanie Monroe. He also recalls reading with fascination about a school in the mountains where powerful executives escaped to learn to carve a simple wooden spoon. With little to lose, he enrolls at a folk art institute in the Sierra Nevada mountains. There he reaffirms his forgotten values, and vows to find the Monroes again.