Unconventional Childhood

This light-hearted memoir takes place in Fleischmanns, NY, a small Catskill Mountain village whose population increased from a few hundred to many thousands during the summer in the 1950s and 1960s. While some people think small towns are boring places to live, the author and her brothers were seldom bored, usually thanks to their parents' ideas on how to occupy their time. While the family was outwardly very conventional, Marilyn and her brothers were allowed to, among other things, smoke cigarettes starting at the age of two and a half, smoke corn silk and string, make gun powder, roller skate around the dining room table on the wall-to-wall carpet, and ride couch cushions down the stairs. The book is a vivid and humorous account of many wonderful childhood adventures.