<p>This book is a reminisce, a personal history of events long past, sweetened by time, recalled with longing, factual, but not accurate.&nbsp;The events I have chosen to write about essentially happened, though not in the idealized manner I have recorded them.&nbsp;It is the issues, the perplexing questions and contradictions I encountered growing up which I have attempted to relate most accurately. Myths, Good and Evil, customs, traditions, facts and fables, along with not so Little White Lies were a minefield I had to traverse through my childhood.&nbsp;Not all of these fictions were harmful, but many were, and I still puzzle over their purpose.&nbsp;My companions on this journey, as portrayed in these stories, are for the most part, amalgams of my childhood companions. I have chosen to respect their privacy and not inflict my uncertainties and issues onto their journey of growth. Lowell, Massachusetts remains constant in my memory, a field of clover with considerable puddles of mud and patches of hemlock around the edges.&nbsp;On those occasions when I can remain still I can recall her rattling city buses, red brick mills lining the Merrimack River, her green, well tended parks and corner taverns alongside corner churches. The rest is silence.&nbsp;Mostly.</p>