The+Life+and+Times+of+the+Thunderbolt+Kid+by+Mitch+C

Journal #1 Mitch Courtney The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson p. 1 – 69 Due: 03/17 This memoir, by Bill Bryson, has recounted so far the accounts of his hometown Des Moines from the year he was born, 1951, to his early childhood. He starts off by telling us about his father’s job and what his father’s job allowed him to do, such as attending major sporting events like the baseball World Series. It also tells of his early childhood and all the adventures him and his friends would get up to. He tells mainly of what he would do during the days and emphasizes on the simplicity of childhood life. He highlights the good times he had with his family such as when he would go downtown and meet his mother at her work, then get dinner and see a movie. He also tells of the many exploits he and his friends had during their early childhood. He emphasized the freedom of the kids in the late 50s and the lack of adult supervision, which allowed them to experiment with many new things. He also tells of an alter-ego that he develops named the Thunderbolt Kid, he used an old football jersey which had a lightning bolt on it and pretended that he was a superhero that specialized in killing morons. So far I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is very funny and extremely interesting. I like reading about what life was like when he was young and comparing it to my childhood. It makes me wish that I was a young kid again. The only criticism I have of the book is that when it tells about the parts of the Thunderbolt Kid, it does not make it clear that this part did not really happen and it gets confusing at some stages.

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 * [|Isometrics]
 * Bobby Thomson
 * M.C. Escher
 * 77 Sunset Strip
 *  Roy Rogers

Journal #2 Mitch Courtney The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson p. 70 – 118 Due: 03/24 Bryson continues his memoir by talking about many new things that have come around in this new age of excitement in the 50s. He also tells many anecdotes about things that were acceptable or that could happen in that period. He tells of a woman who roamed around the White House unobserved and started lighting small spot fires everywhere. He tells this to emphasize how simple and easy-going things were back then. This has been a recurring theme throughout the whole book and this just emphasizes it more. He also tells many tales of his experiences about his pursuit of pleasure and sex and other things. He tells of his first trip to Disneyland and how excited he was. He was so excited because his father rarely spent money on unnecessary things, and going to Disneyland was a very special thing for him as a kid. He was extremely fascinated with the size of the parking lot at Disneyland. He also tells of his first experience at seeing a raunchy film and getting girls to undress in front of a crowd of young boys in their tree house. He also recounts the time that he walked in on his parents having sex and noticing that it didn’t really effect him. I have enjoyed this portion of the book a lot more because there have been a lot less references to the Thunderbolt Kid, so it is a lot easier to understand. It has still remained funny and very interesting. I find it interesting finding out about how he lived when he was younger and comparing it to my childhood and the stories my parents have told me about their childhood. I especially liked his story about when he first went to Disneyland because I remember feeling like that when I first went to Disneyland.


 * A&W Drive-in
 * [|Disneyland Parking Lot]
 * Lake Ahquabi
 * White House Security
 * Maidenform

Journal #3 Mitch Courtney The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson p. 118 – 168 Due: 04/04 In this section of his memoir, Bryson discusses many topics including the fascination with nuclear power, the communist scare, his first encounter with school and typical jobs. He tells us firstly of the fascination that the country had with anything nuclear. Whether it was a nuclear power plant or a nuclear warhead, th e American public supported it. He also tells of the different ways that they tested nuclear bombs, first of all they were tested in the Pacific Ocean, then they were tested in Nevada and they were even tested underground! The next craze to sweep the United States was the communist scare. In this period of time, everyone was suspicious of other people being communists. Many people’s lives were ruined because they were accused (and not always correctly) of being a communist. On a more personal note for Bryson, he recounts his first school experiences. He wasn’t fond of school; he was continually sent out to the cloakroom as a punishment for misbehaving and didn’t like even attending school. He was absent a lot of days but still developed a love for reading. Many of his schoolteachers were not nice and this did not make him like school any better. He also tells of his first experience in the workforce. When he was 11 years old, his father pulled some strings to get him a job as a paperboy. His paper route went through a very affluent neighborhood and so he received many tips and Christmas bonuses. I have had mixed feelings about this part of the book. There have been parts when I have been laughing until I am in tears, but there have also been parts that put me to sleep. I do like the fact that there has been less of an appearance by the Thunderbolt Kid. I have enjoyed reading about his first experiences at school because that reminded me of when I was starting school, and that I had many of the same opinions as him. I did not like the section where he talked about the nuclear fascination because it just got a bit boring after a while.

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 * Nuclear testing in Marshall Islands
 * [|Joseph R. McCarthy]
 * [|Jacobo Arbenz]
 * Museum of the Iowa State Historical Society
 * Bizarro World

Journal #4 Mitch Courtney The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson p. 181 – 268 Due: 04/11 As he so elegantly put it “That’s the way of the world, of course. Possessions get discarded. Life moves on. But often I think what a shame it is that we didn’t keep the things that made us different and special and attractive”(268), Bill Bryson concludes his memoir with a variety of topics including; revisiting the hostility toward Russia, how they filled in their long summer vacation and he even did a kind of where are they now in which he told what people ended up doing after the end of his memoir and how their life turned out. He tells in one section of the book, which is about his growing distrust of adults, about one family vacation they took to Harlem just because his father wanted to save some money. He also told of his firs experience where he thought that he was going to die. This was when President Kennedy announced the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also tells of traumatic experiences he faced in the summer time when the parents of the kids would drop them off at Riverview, a local amusement park, where they would be bullied by the kids across town. He also tells of the mischief that he and his friends would get up to, for example when they wanted to plant a fake bomb at school that shot out confetti, or if they just wanted to have a smoke. Finally, to end the book, he tells of many of the people he mentioned in the book and what happened to them later on in life. He tells of some people who have become very rich and successful lawyers, and others whose life have spiraled downwards due to alcohol and drugs. He also tells about what happened to his parents, and how his mother is still alive even though she does not live in the family home but insists that she was actually a good cook, unlike Bryson says in the book. Overall, I enjoyed this book. There were a lot f parts where it bored me, like when he was talking about the communists and when he was explaining what happened to all his friends, but there were a lot of parts that I enjoyed. I thoroughly enjoyed the parts where he talked about his experiences at school, because I like to compare them to my experiences and see how his childhood was different to mine. Also enjoyed many of the anecdotes he told about his childhood and the satirical view he took on everyday things that we just consider, or were considered normal.


 *  Cuban Missile Crisis
 *  Iowa State Fair
 *  Sputnik
 *  Stripper’s Tent at State Fairs
 *  Boys Life Magazine