From Publishers Weekly
Osgood's memoir of growing up in Baltimore's Liberty Heights neighborhood circa 1942 echoes with the same measured cadence and disarmingly simple structure that the anchor uses in his CBS radio and TV broadcasts. The Emmy Awardâ"winning broadcaster pulls readers into a seductive world, as he relates his obsession with baseball, his love of radio programs (which had a "profound influence" on him) and his experiences with other slices of Americana. Yet the war news affected Osgood, too, if in a minor way: he built a stink bomb with a friend ("weapons of mass disgust to waft at the enemy"), pinned a tiny Japanese flag over Manila on the map mounted on his bedroom wall and wondered "just how much of Africa needed liberating." His reminiscences are a basic nostalgic archetype, where plucky kids, strong families and sunny optimism are the order of the day, compared with Osgood's version of today's world, where ill-educated and pessimistic masses throng America's streets. The author talks about how, as a child aged eight to 12, he simply wanted to make people happy, imagining that if he were a child today, he'd be sent to a psychiatrist for such behavior. The golden-hued streets of Osgood's Liberty Heights are a bona fide paradise, drenched with more nostalgia than even Barry Levinson could offer, without a shred of acknowledgment of memory's distortion of events over time. Photos not seen by PW.
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For a nine-year-old boy living in Baltimore, 1942 was as memorable for the childhood mischief of plaguing the nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic school and making stink bombs for national defense as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Conceding the tendency to sugarcoat childhood memories, Osgood renders sharp details of a life he insists was actually simpler and sweeter, even with the threat of war. In contrast to the arranged play dates of today's children, Osgood remembers walking out the front door and gathering other children for an impromptu baseball game. Radio figured prominently in childhood entertainment and imagination, leaving its mark on a boy who would later make a career in both television and radio. Osgood recalls listening to favorites Captain Midnight, Dick Tracy, and Superman. The beloved Baltimore Orioles and a local amusement park expanded the fun beyond his neighborhood of Liberty Heights. Osgood also recalls the underlying menace of blackout shades and air raid sirens, the sense of unity and duty in the neighborhood victory gardens, and collecting scrap metal and old newspapers to help the war effort. A warm, humorous look at the nation at war from a boy's perspective. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"One of the greatest talents in broadcasting today . . . His pieces . . . are delightfully sage, compassionate, and witty." -- Jim Lehrer
"[Osgood] . . . is one of the best writers in America today, any form or medium. Fresh, pithy, funny, and relevant . . . " -- Dan Rather
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."
