This is the true story of some who have lived; heroes and failures, resourceful and talented, delightful and disappointing human beings whose "days are like grass, flourishing like a flower in the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone; its place is remembered no more". But while I still can, I will remember.

The tale is told in three parts intertwined with amusing and heartbreaking stories, peppered with historical references. 

Part one: "Those Who Came Before" includes ancestors who: entertained on a riverboat during the Civil War, played piano during silent movies, taught in a one-room schoolhouse, delivered milk to front porches in a horse-drawn wagon, participated in dance marathons during the Great Depression, and served as a fighter pilot in World War II. 

Part two: "Childhood to Car Keys" begins with baby boomers (the author being one) and the construction building boom of the early 1950s, wrestlers competing for the Olympics in Rome, middle-class families with big dreams and a built-in swimming pool, Kennedy's assassination, Teen Town at the Y, race riots in the summer of '67, the first draft lottery for the Vietnam War, and the author gets her car keys.

Part three: "Self Determination" involves: negotiating a changing world, a family collapse, drug culture, 1970s traveling show band, unrequited love, searching for truth, searching for truth in Florida, singing in a trio, finding God, losing God, playing in a piano bar, waiting tables, alcohol consumption, continuing to search for God, "naming it and claiming it", "Jesus Freaks", and finding a life.

About the author: Becky Grubbs Ritter is a lover of books, history, and learning. She is a maker of things, a musician, singer, and burgeoning author. At the core she is wife, mother, grandmother, and “post-evangelical” Christian...just another flower flourishing in the field and feeling the wind blow.