Last of the Hooligans is a about growing up in 1968 when my friends and I were twelve years old. It was a time of change, turbulence and violence. The Vietnam War raged on. Anti-war demonstrations and mounting racial tensions were daily occurrences. The U.S was in a race with the former Soviet Union to be the first country to land a man on the moon. But none of those things mattered to my friends and me. We were twelve, and all we were interested in was adventure, sports, and girls pretty much in that order.
The book is about friendship, courage, immaturity, and yes, stupidity. What we lacked in experience we more than made up in exuberance. It is a collection of stories about my friends, my brother and me, and our adventures ... mostly misadventures. It is about the first budding awareness of girls, and stupid, often dangerous, pranks.
We were a fellowship of sorts, though we did not know it at the time or even cared. Ours was a fierce loyalty. We trusted and relied on one another which sometimes led us into trouble, and the reason why we were sometimes called Hooligans. Our reliance on one another saved us as true friendship often does. It also saved us from beatings at the hands of our rivals.
I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family that was strongly influenced by my Irish grandfather. All the stories you hear about the fighting Irish are largely true. Those who knew my brother and me found out, usually the hard way, that if you fought one of us you fought both of us. Of course, we always tried the peaceful diplomatic route first, but in 1968 physical confrontation was just a part of growing up in our neighborhood. I was truly lucky to have had such close friendships with the guys I grew up with in 1968. We were just kids stumbling through life, but we had a blast doing it