What if you could relive your childhood and your adolescence? Would you even want to? Alice Johnson-Zeiger did. On seeing her own reflection in an antique mirror, a much older Alice recognizes how much society has changed since her childhood. Driven to recall these changes, she relates humorous tales about her family in her personal memoir. Alice's stories tell of growing up in a particular time and place. They not only portray the unique character of a southern university town but also reflect how children enjoyed the openness and freedom of the times. Although American involvement in World War II meant diminished circumstances for some families, her parents, neighbors and extended family manage well thanks to their sensible and frugal habits. Unperturbed by the economic disruption of the post war period, Alice begins to grow up. She enters public high school and meets people her own age who are different from those in her home neighborhood. She must also figure out how to behave with the opposite sex. As the 1940s give way to the next decade, Alice's family makes a move to a larger city in another state. Alice must again adapt to a new school and other unfamiliar situations. Although resistant at first, Alice makes new friends and enjoys whatever happens. As her high school years roll by, more changes appear on the horizon. Her well educated parents expect Alice to go to college. It is then that Alice realizes that her course is now set in a direction quite different from the one she had imagined. Even as she starts down this new road, she never stops finding fun and humor in whatever comes along.
About the Author: Alice Johnson-Zeiger grew up in Charlottesville VA and Atlanta GA. She attended Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, then graduate school at Emory University. After earning two advanced degrees in basic health sciences from Emory, she pursued a career in medical research, first at Emory, then at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla CA and finally at the University of Texas Health Science Centers in in Dallas and Tyler TX. She is the mother of two daughters and stepmother to two sons and a daughter. She also has seven grand-children. Now retired, Alice lives in upstate New York with her husband, Donald Zeiger, two active Labrador retrievers and a large Maine Coon cat.