By turns nostalgic, humorous, moving and exciting, My First Eighteen Years in Lansing, Kansas, the new memoir by Glenn L. Linaweaver Jr. is a mellow and succinct retelling of his boyhood in the rural Midwest. He describes with honesty and color the hard work on the farm, the excursions into the woods with his father, the high school dances and rowdy parties, and the other characters and incidents which made up his early life. It paints a picture of a simpler, perhaps more reassuring, small- town America that is well worth remembering, and which the fortunate reader will discover is a pleasure to recall, as well. Glenn L. Linaweaver Jr. was born in Lansing, Kansas, a town so small it was not even incorporated until he was a teenager. His family was far from wealthy; they had to grow their own food or hunt for it. It was the end of the Depression and the beginning of World War II rationing; many things were hard to come by. But he remembers the whole community being "in the same class," working hard, and knowing each other. Linaweaver still lives in that same town. His wife of over 50 years, the same girl he met back in those rural schools they attended, passed away unexpectedly from a surgery in 2012.