Charlie Payne remembers a coming-of-age summer in Bacon Grease & Baseball. He developed an enduring passion for baseball, playing it, reading about it, and talking about it with new friends, old and young. He learned to love Gramby's buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, and bacon, lots of bacon. He found joy in reading, singing, investigating Gramby's woods and a creek, and dreaming about places and life outside his personal world. He discovered girls. How was a boy influenced by a grandmother, new friends playing baseball, adults with time to share with a young boy, and a new environment?