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0-89587-168-8
$8.95 paperback
5 x 7
253 pages
B-W photographs
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A delicate
portrait of a vanished age.
--Kirkus Reviews
In the hazy days before
television and adult-supervised athletics, boys had to create their own
amusements. In the 1930s, Paxton Davis and the boys from his
neighborhood wreaked a brand of youthful havoc that was at once
innocent, innovative, idyllic, and uniquely American.
Baseball was "as natural
as breathing," played with towsacks or bushes for bases, splintered
bats held together with electric tape, and teams with from two to two
dozen players. The Meketchum Detective Agency was founded for the
express purpose of apprehending John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1.
Davis's Boy Scout Troop "never became a notable example of Scouting
endeavor," but "it gained a widespread reputation as the troop
freest of ambition and most devoted to pleasure."
In more traditional fashion,
Davis and his friends listened to radio serials, delivered newspapers,
attended summer camp, and, with a measure of trepidation, danced with
the girls at the local female academy.
Davis recalls his youth with
grace, humor, and a balanced perspective. Times and circumstances
change, but there is always something to be celebrated in a boyhood
fondly remembered.
about the author
Paxton Davis worked as a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal
and the Roanoke Times & World News and taught journalism at
Washington and Lee University for 23 years. He was also the author of
twelve books, including his subsequent memoirs, A
Boy's War and A Boy No More.
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