The Collected Memoirs of Charles Willeford

This collection features I Was Looking for a Street, Willeford's personal reminiscence of the Great Depression, riding the rails across America's southwest as a young hobo, and Something about a Soldier, a remarkable recreation of a young soldier's recollection of a peacetime era now far in the past. Lively and unrestrained, these revealing pages will be relished by both old soldiers and today's civilians. I Was Looking for a Street - The personal reminiscence of an orphaned boy without expectations. It reflects the stories of thousands of homeless men and boys, without roots, direction or work, adrift in the American southwest during the Great Depression - a panorama of desert and high mesa, cafes and bordellos, relief camps and soup kitchens, railroad yards and hobo jungles. Something About a Soldier - This funny, rich raunchy autobiography re-creates the adventures of a very young soldier in the U.S. Army at the height of the Depression. Charles Willeford was sixteen in 1935 when he signed up and was sent to the Philippines. And the Philippines of those days was like a place out of another century. Perfect in its depiction of an often brutish way of life - and the colorful mingling of unfettered boys, bitter old men, and even intellectuals - Something About a Soldier is a rare portrait of a vanished army.