Title: The Sounds and Smells of My Childhood: Growing Up in the Soo’s East End in the 1950s – Part 2
Author: Mike McCarthy
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-5245-9251-6
Pages: 294
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: Suzanne Gattis
Pacific Book Review
Sometimes it’s a familiar sight, a gentle touch, or a scent wafting through the air that triggers it. “It” being the floodgate of memories, emotions and laughter of the past. In this authentic memoir by Mike McCarthy, the author and readers alike are privileged to take a walk through one man’s past. However, it is not just the past of the author, but also a tale of how America used to be, particularly in the beauty of the Sault. Through personalized and entertaining stories, The Sounds and Smells of My Childhood: Growing Up in the Soo’s East End in the 1950s Part 2 takes us on a journey of ups and downs, twists and turns, and of laughter and tears. Based on the song and poem written by David Mallett, “I Knew This Place, the book sheds light on how our past helps shape our future and the importance of having this recorded somehow for generations to come.” Stories such as these are the threads that weave together the tapestries of our lives.
In the Introduction, McCarthy states in his lifetime, he has come full circle in his love of the Soo. The place of our upbringing plays a huge role in determining who we grow up to be. It molds us into the people that we are today. McCarthy obviously looks back at his time with nostalgia and loved the place, the people, and the memories. How many of us, like him though, want to grow up and leave and see the world, only to realize it is a place and time that we would love to return to. With chapters such as ‘The Curbside Dust on a Windy Day’ and ‘Let’s Go to the Starlight Drive-In Theater,’ the reader is taken back to a time, childhood, when things seemed simpler. With humor and honesty, the author tells us where he has come from and what he has been. He tells how opinions were formed, relationships built, memories made.
This book is inspiring for anyone who might be thinking of recording their own past for future generations. It’s not just told as a timeline; it is a series of stories strung along to portray a living picture in the reader’s mind. It records not only a time in the author’s life but an era of the world. Things were different then; we all were. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history as well as real-life drama. Anyone who plans to record their own history would gain great insight on how to do so from this book as well.
