Book Description

The Great Depression of the 1930s was a challenging time for most families- especially those in the "Dust Bowl" states such as Oklahoma. This is a true story of a young boy born just three months before the "Crash of 1929", told with reflections on his growing up in Ada, Oklahoma, during the 1930s and 1940s as his and other neighborhood families struggled for survival and then recovered as the nation began to experience the "Happy Days are Here Again!" promised by a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The book covers the childhood and youth years- ending with high school graduation when writer recognizes that he has "miles to go before I sleep". Young Oliver "hawked" newspapers in Ada's downtown business area as a seven-year old, moved on to paper routes and other jobs and learned important life skills through family, church, work, Scouting, neighborhood activities, and especially, as he became "the eyes" for a loving, blind grandfather who, despite that handicap, ran a small neighborhood store and taught the young man how to "see with the mind's eye". People and events remembered from childhood days are sometimes part fact and part perception. The people existed and the events occurred. The blending of reality with the thoughts and impressions left in the mind of a young child become the memories of an adult and are shared so that today's generation and future generations will know what life was like in that era. These are reflections on the joys and trials- neighborhood incidents, play, the murder of a neighbor, falling in love- memories of one person from the generation which was the smallest in number of all recent generations and one which is rapidly disappearing.