Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack: A Boyhood Year During World War II - Hardcover

Osgood, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1401300235 ISBN 13: 9781401300234

Publisher: Hyperion, 2004

Synopsis

The year is 1942, and while America is reeling from the first blows of WWII, Osgood is just a nine-year-old boy living in Baltimore. As the war rages somewhere far beyond the boundaries of his hometown, he spends his days delivering newspapers, riding the trolley to the local amusement park, going to Orioles' baseball games, and goofing around with his younger sister.

With a sharp eye for details, Osgood captures the texture of life in a very different era, a time before the polio vaccine and the atomic bomb. In his neighborhood of Liberty Heights, gaslights still glowed on every corner, milkmen delivered bottles of milk, and a loaf of bread cost nine cents.

Osgood reminisces about his first fist-fight with a kid from the neighborhood, his childhood crush on a girl named Sue, and his relationship with his father, a traveling salesman. He also talks about his early love for radio and how he used to huddle under the covers after his parents had turned off the lights, listening to Superman, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, and, of course, to baseball games.

Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack is a gloriously funny and nostalgic slice of American life and a moving look at World War II from the perspective of a child far away from the fighting, but very conscious of the reverberations.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Osgood writes and anchors The Osgood File four times daily over the CBS radio network and anchors CBS television's Sunday Morning every week. He is the winner of two Emmys and three Peabody Awards; Washington Journalism Review named him "Best in the Business" five years running; and in 1990 he was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters' Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He lives in New Jersey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

"As a nine year-old patriot on the home front, I helped to collect scrap rubber, scrap metal, tinfoil, old newspapers, and even cans of fat for the war effort. Some of the tinfoil came from my father's packs of cigarettes, some of it came from my packs of gum, and some of the rubber came from rubber bands that I took home from school. Stealing them wasn't a sin because I kept hearing that God was on our side. Praise the Lord and pass the school supplies.

That year, 1942, was the best of times for a Baltimore boy who always seemed to be feeling good and the worst of times for a nation reeling from the first blows of World War Two."

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1401300235
• ISBN 13: 9781401300234
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 139