The Lucky Generation: Growing up in Depression and War; a Memoir is a book about memory and history and about the way they intersect and sometimes conflict. It is about growing up in the 1930s and ' 40s in Hardwick, a small town in Northern Vermont, caught between the old ways and the emerging modern world. It contains both a provincial story and a universal experience; a personal story and the story of a generation. This is a book about food and material culture, movies and radio, dancing and baseball. Finally, it is about breaking away from small-town ways into a world shaped by Depression and War.