Kitty Harmon has put together a book of stories that aren’t exactly the kind of tales Ward would have told the Beaver and Wally. This is more like what Homer Simpson would tell Bart.
“Up to No Good: The Rascally Things Boys Do As Told by Perfectly Decent Grown Men” (Chronicle Books, $12.95) is 108 amusing pages of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s talking about the really dumb things they did as kids.
For example, Bruce — last names are omitted for obvious reasons — tells about some fun he once had when his parents weren’t home: “When I was in junior high we took some tennis balls, soaked them in gasoline, and then lit them on fire and played night soccer in our driveway.”
There are memories of throwing darts at each other in
the dark, of attaching a real pig snout to a water fountain in school and having the water shoot out the nostrils, of throwing rocks at a girl– but kissing them first, because the thrower had a crush on the girl . . . you get the idea.
It’s probably not advisable to let your sons read this — let them come up with their own crazy ideas — but dads (and moms) will enjoy it.
