The stories gathered in these pages are for the most part true. One or two have been given the benefit of a fertile imagination. A few others were casualties of a memory that tends to become more forgetful as it ages.

     You may notice that the stories stray from a chronological order. I might be eleven in one tale, then sixteen in the next. Followed by a story in which I’m a pre-teen again. Some of the narratives encompass more than one event or a particular time frame. After an attempt to follow a timeline, I came to the conclusion that they should stay, much like my life in those days, unorganized.

     Though several of the short tales are from my perspective, I tried to put the burden (or in some cases the blame) on my fellow Northwooders.  These stories are really about them. Some have passed away, but we all live in these pages. The Northwooders will always endure in the stories we tell.

     If you happened to be young in this wild yet innocent time, you might find similarities in these stories to your own adolescence. If not, then this is what you missed.