Mommy, Why Do They Have Wars?

Dick Friedrich's book "Mommy Why Do They Have Wars?" probably won't answer that question for any reader, but it probably will answer the question "How Do We Grow Up?" Starting with the apartment where he grew up, it is the story of a young boy discovering a larger world as he explores his neighborhood and beyond in 1940s Chicago. From his northside Catholic grade school to picnics by the lake, Chicago was the setting as he saw his father go to war. It was the home where he and his mother and younger sister learned to accommodate the very real and very unsettled reality of war. And it was the home to which he returned. As the boy grew, sometimes watching from the third floor apartment as his father headed out for the twelve block walk to work, he tested himself against the world. Games in the yard, in the streets, in the snow and in the summer. The world grew beyond. From walking up the street to the movies, riding his bicycle to the next neighborhood, then alone, the EL. Friedrich sees this memoir as a gift from the past to the future. The story of a regular city boy, growing to meet the world.