Several years ago, my best friend, who grew up in Des Moines
in the 1950’s, gave me a copy of Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. I enjoyed it so much
that I subsequently read and enjoyed virtually all of his numerous books. So,
when the opportunity recently arose to suggest it to Books, Brews, and Banter, I heartily
recommended it, although I rarely read books twice.
In this hilarious memoir, Bryson captures the time and place
of his boyhood in Des Moines in the 50s and 60s, reminding us of a happy time
when cars, household appliances, and even nuclear weapons grew larger and more
abundant each year, while DDT, cigarettes, and atomic fallout were considered
harmless or even good for you. He writes about his loving but eccentric family,
including warm portraits of his father, a gifted but often absent sportswriter
for the Des Moines Register, and his absentminded mother, who was the home
furnishing editor also for the Register.
His early childhood recollections include the first
televisions, comic books, toys (electric football and erector sets), his
mother’s bland cooking, the threat of the Atomic Bomb, movie matinees, fears of
polio, TV dinners, the Iowa State Fair, and visits to Grandpa’s farm. His alter
ego, The Thunderbolt Kid, born of his love for comic book super heroes and his
need to vaporize awful evildoers, allowed him to see under women’s clothing, if
only in his imagination. When adolescence took over, Bryson’s adventures were
replaced with riskier hobbies of smoking, drinking, forging IDs, and his growing
fascination with sex that included the discovery of Dad’s secret stash of
girlie magazines, his attempts at gaining access to the notorious “strippers
tent” at the State Fair, and his unfilled desire to see Mary O’Leary naked.
Bryson is a master of the detail. He mined magazines and newspapers of the
period with an eye for the tragic, the revealing and the just plain odd, including
the story of the barmaid charged with obscenity for being able to carry two
glasses of beer on her breasts, the black man sentenced to death for stealing
$1.95, and parents climbing ladders outside polio wards to shout greeting to
the children.
His book is so outlandish and improbably entertaining, you
sometimes begin to doubt its veracity. For example, none of our book club
members remember his contention that the Japanese sent balloons with bombs in
them over the US during WWII, some going as far as Virginia.
Nonetheless, it’s a wondrous laugh-out-loud book, evoking
both the unadulterated joys and everyday battles of childhood. A great fun-read, especially for Baby Boomers
nostalgic for the good old days. Ken Johnson
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