Jake Ernst experiences the growing pains, comic and poignant, of passing from the innocent years of the early 60s to the growing turbulence of the later years of that amazing decade. An appealing country lad (Lancaster County, PA) with academic aspirations, he develops from adolescence to early manhood--intellectually, socially & sexually--as he struggles with his mother's cryptic advice to choose good girls over bad ones. Along the way he meets both and puzzles over the difference between the two. We meet him at age 17 and follow his maturation until age 28 (1959-1967) in which he faces the challenges of first sex, first love, break up, college, the Cuban Missile Crisis, sexual identity, drinking, wild women, political protest, the Kennedy assassination, serious love, abortion, and resistance to the Vietnam draft. His life course changes from comic ineptitude to life & death issues, as did the decade of the 60s.