The author, a retired newspaperman, recreates his early growing up years in the NY state capital, with wit and irony. There were the sandlot ballgames, row boat trips down the Hudson, visits to the Palace and Paramount Theaters, and even hikes to the neighborhood dump with his ten-year-old buddies, to do battle with the rats. There is also mention of the conflict stemming from his mother Nell's roots "as Irish as a Fitzgerald and Gilligan could make her" and his father's Italian immigrant background. The telling is laced with humor.