Bill Bryson's Thunderbolt Kid

My friend, Kathy Getto (Beaded Bungee Bookmark-maker extraordinaire), sent an email a few weeks ago saying she'd just finished a hilarious book, Bill Bryson's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID. I love hilarity, so I requested it from my library and it arrived a few days later. The memoir focuses on Bill's life as a youngster growing up in Iowa, and concentrates on his memories from roughly six to 14. I too just finished it, and my cheeks are still deliciously sore from laughing. Here is an excerpt:

"...If we had a guest from beyond the usual family circle somebody would always bring out the dribble glass and offer the guest a drink. The dribble glass was the funniest thing I had ever seen. It was a fancy-looking, many-faceted drinking glass -- exactly the sort of glass that you would give to an honored guest -- that appeared to be perfectly normal, and indeed was perfectly normal, so long as you didn't tilt it. But cut into the facets were tiny, undetectable slits, ingeniously angled so that each time the glass was inclined to the mouth a good portion of the contents dribbled out in a steady run onto the victim's chest.

There was something indescribably joyous about watching an innocent, unaware person repeatedly staining him- or herself with cranberry juice or cherry Kool-Aid (it was always something vividly colored) while twelve people looked on with soberly composed expressions. Eventually, feeling the seepage, the victim would look down and cry, 'Oh, my golly!' and everyone would burst out laughing.'

I never knew a single victim to get angry or dismayed when they discovered the prank. Their best white shirt would be ruined, they would look as if they had been knifed in the chest, and they would laugh till their eyes streamed. God, but Iowans were happy souls."

This book is a keeper. Buy it for anyone born in the '50s or early '60s, or for their parents.