Doomsday Marbles

Billy, now an adult with kids of his own, remembers the mistakes and mishaps of his “Forties” childhood. Some, such as an excess intake of pumpkin pie, were his fault, whereas his classmates shared the blame for using pigs to simulate a cattle stampede. This was also true in the case of the infamous marble heist. “Skunk,” son of the town’s one-eyed barber, is the one responsible for the runaway steam tractor, but it’s Eddie, Billy’s brother who stage-manages a close encounter with a skunk. Yet, those traumas pale before the occasion when Billy’s poorly worded compliment results in a head-rattling slap from a bejeweled Delilah. Worse is the evening when he meets his deceased grandfather literally face to face. Billy’s story is a reminder that growing up really is hard to do. And, every man who reads this book will remember his own mistakes while feminine sympathies will go to mothers and teachers of boys.

B.K.'s early years in the rural mid-west provided a wealth of material for Doomsday Marbles, a tale about kid's life reminiscent of Jean Shepherd's oft-televised A Christmas Story. Between sessions at his computer, he tours America with other members of CHVA in a 45 year-old Ford. CHVA's national website features his Vent Window Views, a column of humorous nostalgia about autos and the road-warriors who love them. Automobiles and travel have played a part in his life since 1937, when his birth interrupted a family road trip just as they reached Clarinda, Iowa. After seventeen years spent on the family's farm in Missouri, he entered college and escaped rural isolation forever. To paraphrase an old song, "Ya can't keep'em down on the farm after they've seen coeds!" Showalter later worked for a major airline where the traveling public provided an unending cavalcade of drama and comedy, some of which ended up in his recent novel, CASH SCOW. Customer service assignments in various mid-western and west coast locations gave him real-time exposure to changing lifestyles and national angst during an era when Vietnam and "Flower Children" owned the headlines.