Romance in My Rambler

David Bourbon faces challenges as a kid growing in the 1960s. He learns about life and death at age five, and again as a teenager. David grows up like other baby boomers in an era of change—The Cuban Missile Crisis, school integration, Sputnik, The Beatles, The Pill, and an emerging war in Vietnam. Childhood experiences forge his views on a range of issues from nature to war. He feels the pain of a traumatic event that forever changes how he treats other people. His grandparents and WWII parents provide an anchor for life’s challenges. On the first day of football practice in August 1962, a line of black football player’s faces stare at a row of white faces. David and his teammates are standing in the line of white faces. An all-black Dunbar High School is integrating with an all-white Hopewell High School. We wonder how this experiment will work out. Who will start and who will quit? Are we stronger as one team or separate? Can we win the state high school football championship? And how will we get along off the football field? At sixteen, David’s life changes when his dad drives home in a new 1963 Rambler. This event triggers several high school romances—1960s style. David’s romances include a few fumbles along the way as he tries to reconcile life forces like love, sex, and luck. The Rambler becomes a high school legend with the help of a beautiful auburn hair young woman named Anna. An Ann Margret lookalike, Anna propels David to manhood. The quest to win a state high school football championship endures several twists of fate. David confronts the randomness of life on and off the football field. He tries to cope with several heartbreaking events that define people’s lack of control. Meanwhile, national and international events seem to intrude on his small town and its people. David enters his senior year with one last chance to fulfill his quest for a state football championship. At an after-Prom party, classmates reflect on their young lives and futures. David’s family and classmates were the only ones who really knew him. What it was like to grow up in Hopewell amidst the upheavals of the 1950s and hostile 1960s. These experiences bound the Class of 1965 together for life. We are protected by unyielding time and space constraints. Like so many high school graduates, we were happy and sad at the same time. Graduation was a marker in life, and a ceremony that simultaneously defined an end and a beginning. Even at a young age, David knew that life is about renewal, and he sort of had a premonition that he would go through many renewals. The Class of 1965 had come of age, and David was a very proud part of it. David’s story begins and ends with the embrace of his mom. Possible Target Market(s): USA baby boomers who would read the book and reminisce about their high school days. Baby boomer children might want to read what their parents experienced in the 1960s. Also, romance novels, adventure novels, and coming of age novels fit this book. Keywords: adult, baby boomers, romance, sex, adventure, coming of age, 1960s, and American high school football