Ten Again

"Hey, Mike, what're we gonna do today?" It's 1960, and Mike is ten again, at least in his mind. Looking back on his final year of elementary school, he reflects on the many challenges that confronted him then. Junior high and the opposite sex loom on the horizon-his mini-version of the New Frontier. From the neighborhood baseball field to the local movie theatre, from Halloween to Christmas morning, and from Bozo buckets to a once-in-a-lifetime trip across the country to Disneyland, Mike is constantly in motion-and often in trouble. But he has his younger brother Tommy and a few close friends to help him navigate the vast suburban wilderness. This snapshot of a bygone era shows the last generation allowed to be kids taking full advantage of it-and having the time of their lives. MICHAEL J. BELLITO taught Speech and English, including creative writing classes, at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, for thirty-two years. He has been previously published in North Shore, a Chicago-area magazine. That piece was a short story about his grandfather entitled "Waiting for a Pennant." Ten Again is his first novel. He is currently teaching at Harper College, a local community college. Having raised two children, he now lives with his wife in Wheeling, Illinois.