Praise Blue Skies

Description:

This bittersweet boyhood memoir from the 1950s moves through disparate, bygone places -- a small, poor crossroads in segregated Arkansas, an Oklahoma mental hospital, an isolated ranch bunkhouse without electricity, and a prairie town with Route 66 as main street. Drawn from episodic childhood memories and family letters, this book tells the story of an unusual boyhood -- of love, loss, redemption and dreams in search of a self -- and the story of a family's survival and success under the steady, sunny and determined presence of a strong mother.

subjects: mental illness,  drug addiction,  boyhood memories,  baseball,  suicide,  single mother,  Route 66

People: Wendell White,  Margaret White,  Tom White

Places: Oklahoma,  Tulsa,  Vinita,  Wooster,  Ohio,  Hampton,  Arkansas,  Eastern Oklahoma State Hospital

Times: 1930s,  1940s,  1950s,  1960s