Free Range Kids and the St. Louis You Forgot You Missed
(Short version: I read this book over a weekend and loved it. You will, too.)
Don Draper said in Mad Men that nostalgia means “the pain from an old wound,” but I hear the meaning is actually closer to “a painful yearning to return home.” There’s no pain in “Hampton Avenue Chronicles,” only joyful celebration. And therein lies the rub with this book: celebrating what?
It’s a celebration of childhood in the sixties and seventies. Back before smartphones and social media. Back when the schoolyard was maybe a little rougher, but the neighborhood was a lot safer. When being a kid was probably a lot more fun.
It’s a celebration of St. Louis; specifically the South Side version that locals of a certain age carry around in their heads like a mental map they’ll never throw away. You don’t have to have grown up there to enjoy it. But if you did, the landmarks Bafaro revisits will hit you like the smell of sautéed onions drifting from a White Castle you haven’t thought about in thirty years.
This book is also an unintended celebration of “free range parenting.” The author’s parents figure heavily into the stories at first, but disappear almost entirely as he becomes more mobile. I kept thinking, “they don’t know where he is!” Those later stories, for reasons anyone who’s been a kid will understand, are the best ones.
Bottom line: If you know who Stan “The Man” is, have memories of “the old barn” on Oakland, or can sing the Wehrenberg theme on command, you’ll enjoy this book. But if not, that’s okay. You’ll realize that as the author tells his stories, he’s also telling a version of yours.
He tells ‘em well. Highly recommended.
