THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LAST KID PICKED

A boy's way of life in the olden heartland of America, now largely gone, is expertly summoned again by a clever grown-up kid.

In a narrative voice that sounds like Penrod equipped with a few cuss words, Benjamin deftly depicts the world of kids (i.e., boys) and girls, of classmates and cousins, of bullies and sidekicks. It's Wisconsin in the 1950s and ’60s, and they are all blithely prepubescent. With scant commerce or conversation with grownups, the self-imposed rules of kidhood were strict and intricate. The Code's main feature: You are on your own—no kid help, no adult help. Motherly instruction had just two variants: “do your chores” (to which the appropriate reply was “awjeezma-a!”) or, alternatively, “go out and play.” And play this writer did. There was an adventure with a monstrous snapping turtle, a tussle with a crazy squirrel, giant fish to be caught, hurdles to leap, and flyballs to catch. Sandlot baseball, pickup football, and general scrambling all involved playground politics, artful and fraught with complexities. There were, naturally, mortal perils to boys' lives: tricky swimming holes, ice, tractors, polio, parents, mean old ladies with firearms, cops, and robbers. And, outfitted at the start with a papier mâché fielder's glove, a bamboo fishing pole, annoying siblings, and a talent for spelling, was our memoirist. There were Saturday movies and epic ball games with the kids from the Publics against the Catholics. Skinny Benjamin, the poor parochial school odd-kid-out from a broken home, strained mightily for school and Savior. We can see him, portrayed by Master Rockwell, fairly leaping off a Saturday Evening Post cover. His evocative memoir, part Patrick McManus and more Jean Shepherd, has enough fun and wit to play with either, last kid no more.

A nice memory piece.