Kevin Wallick

Along the Banks of the Spoon River Kevin Wallick

Growing up poor in the 1940's farming along the Spoon River, the Wallick children learned to look out for each other, using their imaginations and playfulness to soften the edges of lives filled with hard work and an alcoholic parent, escaping to the safety of the woods, streams, and river whenever possible. The adventures of Chuck, his seven siblings, and neighborhood kids galore in the countryside and farmstead capture the innocent, but often dangerous, mischief of the time. The facts of the stories told are as true as memories allow with just the details filled in with imagination and seasoned by the flavors of the land. Chuck Wallick came close to getting killed many times over his life, ten by my count with more than once the others present as witness thinking he was sure enough dead. Other times things were close to going the other way and might have easy enough. That I am his son and passing on his stories as told me is something of a spoiler, but the protagonist of these stories survives and makes it through his trials having lived fuller than most and with stories matched by only a few.