Alvin: Recollections and Reflections

A realistic picture of life for the minority poor in the last century unfolds through retold conversations about a locality, a fishing industry, and two wars. This book is a fictionalized biography of Alvin Wormley, an actual person, a remarkable black man who was born the son of a poor tenant farmer in the rural south of 1912. Alvin faced life's perplexities in a segregated society. Through good times and bad he accepted life as it was offered. An honest and sincere man, he lived without malice until his return from army service in World War II. It was only then that he questioned riding in the back of the bus.

John H. Harding, Jr. was born in Northumberland County, Virginia. He attended local schools, graduated from the College of William and Mary and taught school one year before serving two years in the army. In 1960 he graduated from the Medical College of Virginia, School of Dentistry, returned to Northumberland County where he practiced for thirty-one years.After retirement he published his first book, Shortchanged, about a boyhood friend who was killed in Korea. The book was endorsed by the Korean War Veterans Association and the Honorable John O. Marsh, Jr., former secretary of the army.