<p>From the Foreword:</p>

<p>This is my second book about what it was like for a boy to grow up in Fargo from 1953 to 1980.&nbsp; Make no mistake &ndash; the idea of writing these is Not so readers will come to know Me personally.&nbsp; My life isn&#39;t all that notable.&nbsp; I just tell stories.&nbsp; In this book, I am somewhat more reflective than narrative &ndash; it isn&#39;t so much What happened that&#39;s interesting, but what lessons could be derived.</p>

<p>That era &ndash; 1950-1980 &ndash; is too often overlooked down on the Personal level.&nbsp; Yeah &ndash; everyone has heard about the Big Historical Things, but few actually experienced most of those.&nbsp;</p>

<p>As one of my high school classmates (whose name is Very well-known in Fargo to this day) confided in a recent email, 'I guess I assumed I was the only kid with an inner life.'</p>

<p>She wasn&#39;t.&nbsp; We all had Inner Lives.&nbsp; We all experienced them in our own way, figuring that there was some sort of Unique thing going on that wasn&#39;t anything like the lives we saw publicized on television.&nbsp; We saw the Ozzie and Harriet fantasy, where Moms and Dads were always just 100% appropriate, Fine Upstanding People in their communities, with handsome children and No genuine problems other than those silly plotlines that went on for a half hour. With commercials.</p>

<p>Our families weren&#39;t like that, and we were led to believe that If they weren&#39;t, there was Something Wrong &ndash; with us!</p>

<p>The television shows were lying.</p>

<p>Real People &ndash; people we knew and saw every day &ndash; didn&#39;t live like that.&nbsp; Families were Not always close-knit and friendly.&nbsp; Real tragedies happened and left lifelong scars.&nbsp; The moments of genuine joy were so unusual that we often didn&#39;t recognize them when they happened.</p>

<p>Our reaction was predicated on how the television shows suggested we Should act, and not on how Real People actually experienced living and loving in a time of great social change.</p>

<p>So many old friends, and even folks I&#39;ve never met before, have commented that after reading the <strong><em>Being Fargo</em></strong>, their own memories of their own lives somehow got freed from a lifelong set of inappropriate expectations.&nbsp; Several suggested that they had believed that somehow their lives were more Failure than Success, and that had stayed with them over the years.&nbsp;</p>

<p>We are a ridiculous and endlessly funny species &ndash; sometimes.&nbsp; We are also tragic and sad &ndash; sometimes.&nbsp; Both experiences play out, and each teaches us something. &nbsp;But we tend far too often forget or overlook the intensity of the Joy, and instead make a point of endlessly re-living the sadness.</p>

<p>There&#39;s no point in that.</p>

<p>There are many lives that really Were tragedies in many ways.&nbsp; Some of those early experiences colored our abilities to experience much else over the years, so some sort of internal balance is now in order.&nbsp; We would do well to remember the fun, the silliness, the funny parts and sometimes just the sheer Joy of being alive.&nbsp; And having survived to remember.</p>

<p>If these stories provide a context for seeing how Life was experienced at the time, how the central experience of learning to Love could come about, consider them my gift.&nbsp;</p>