An idyllic childhood examined from the viewpoint of a boy growing up in the western suburbs of Chicago during the 1950s and 60s. Clarendon Hills was part of the suburban boom that occurred in post-WWII America when the country was ascendent. The author looks at what shaped his life while the village was growing; the wealth distinctions, the transformation of a wild peat bog into a park, the teacher whose words he can still recall, the all-consuming love of baseball, his family's background, the characters and personalities present in daily life. Readers will go on a toboggan ride with a future criminal; find out about the prostitute rumor; re-live a bank robbery; sneak into the Hinsdale movie theater; visit Lucy's to buy some candy; re-live an era that will never again exist. "During my youth, wealth competitiveness had not seemed to infect Clarendon Hills. Not yet. Unlike some towns, there was no proverbial wrong side of the tracks, although those on the south side, I have come to learn, believed themselves to be superior. Ha ha ha."

"...a brief time when you could just enjoy life without too much social pressure to upscale your property and possessions."

"Growing up, I had no idea what secrets might be lurking within the modest homes of the community..."

"Girls dancing in socks always got the hormones raging."