Once upon a time before the rude reality shocks of the 1960s, Patrick McGilligan grew up in downtown Madison on the shore of haunting Lake Mendota, in the long shadow of St. Raphael's Cathedral and the State Capitol. His busy boyhood intersected with everyone "famous in Wisconsin" and others more famous who were just passing through the small Midwestern city. His tender, humorous, engaging memoir of lost times ponders life's lessons and the self-mythologizing boast that Madison was, as LIFE Magazine proclaimed, "the best place in America to live."