A Boy's Life in the Baby Boom

"A Boy's Life in the Baby Boom/ True Tales From Small Town America" by James Herbert Smith is a memoir about growing up in Pittsford, NY at the beginning of the baby boom. From his earliest memories in the late 1940s until his graduation from college in 1968, Smith writes the story of childhood freedom before anyone thought of helicopter parenting. The story reaches back to his parents' generation fighting in World War II and ends in the quagmire of Vietnam. It is a tale of swimming holes, and sandlot baseball and football with no adults in sight; of the first black and white televisions sets beaming Howdy Doody, the Mickey Mouse Club, into living rooms, and how a boy grew up during the next greatest generation in the 50s and 60s.