A Capital Upbringing

With humor and boyish exuberance, author Robert Webster recounts the hardships and joys of growing up in 1930’s Vermont. Born to Scottish immigrants during the height of the Great Depression, young “Bobie” learns, often the hard way, how to make do in a world where even basic necessities are hard to come by. In this touching and warmhearted account of his boyhood in Montpelier, the state capital, the author reminds us of Gold Star mothers, highcuts and jar rubbers, nickel bags of pork scraps, high stakes games of marbles, visits by Tom Mix and Premo Canaro, and Saturday matinees with Lash LaRue. This is Vermont before ski lifts, the interstate highway system, television or plastic maple sugar tubing, a place where the whole neighborhood rides the cattle truck to the state park for Sunday picnics and ballgames, singing and telling stories all the way. From his earliest memories as a child to the birth of his own children, Robert Webster’s memories of one of the most challenging decades in American history unfolds with sharp insight and brilliant detail to reveal a personal and historical treasure.