This is the real-life story of a boy-child's journey to man-child whose start in life began in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the Great Depression. The journey takes him to Colorado, where for the first ten years of his life, he was raised by his maternal grandparents, with stop-offs from time to time with foster parent friends of his mother. He was placed in a home for needy children during the war years, 1942-1945. He left the home in 1946 at age 15 and journeyed the difficult teen years as a high school dropout taking jobs ranging from the work camps of the forest service to the oil fields of Wyoming and the fishing boats of California. His feelings, thoughts, and actions along the way are those of a boy-some dumb, some silly, and some maybe even profound. He knew cruel and frozen homelessness and hunger firsthand, as well as the kindness of strangers. The reader will meet the mentors who helped shape the boy's life: the loving and caring grandmother, the hard-as-nails grandfather, the nineteen-year-old seductress, the pool shark instructor, the crap shooters, the ex-GIs, some tough guys, some delicate guys, some good girls, some bad girls, and some people dumb as a rock and some smart as a whip. They all contributed to who the boy became.