Ragamuffins of the Fifth Ward

What comes to mind when you think back to the era of the sixties and seventies?Watergate, Vietnam, civil unrest, racial tension? Nah, not if it was 1968 and you were ten years old. That was the stuff adults worried about. All we had to worry about was who was stronger, The Hulk or Thor? Or how many doubles of Y. A. Tittle could one kid actually end up with before getting that Johnny Unitas card?

The 1960s era was dubbed the Age of Innocents, and with good reason. Children were under the protective wings of adults?spared the anxieties that our parents faced as we entered into an era of war, of high tech death and destruction. It was almost as though an invisible barrier had been erected, defining the fine line between childhood and adulthood. Breaking the barrier was a one-way trip. Once done, it was impossible to return to that childlike state that made everything as simple as night and day.

Comic books were twelve cents, and they were a magical balance of words and pictures collectively known as pop art. Baseball cards were bought as much for the stick of hard, pink bubble gum as for the cards themselves. Candy was a sight to behold?sold in loose, bulk quantities, not wrapped in today?s win-something-for-free gimmicky wrappers. Yep, growing up in the sixties was a kid?s dream come true!

Never again will these unique rites of passage be repeated. Technological advances and changes in attitudes have supplanted the simple pleasures recounted here. Because such joys of childhood may be a thing of the past, this book has been written as a reminder of that special time, a tribute to that Age of Innocents?to growing up in the sixties.