James Wharton

The Wrong Page James Wharton

The Wrong Page, My Astonishing Life as a Teenager in 1958, is an intimate, humorous self-portrait of a fourteen year old boy suddenly thrust into the adult world and seat of government of the most powerful country on Earth. It is Washington, DC in 1958. The Cold War is going strong and the country is coming apart as the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam War protests take center stage. Unsupervised and unaccountable in Washington, DC, he must adjust to living away from home, being alone, confronting bullies, an unfriendly high school, and working in the United States Capitol with congressmen and senators. The Wrong Page is a fun ride through the halls of Congress and the United States Capitol Building with its secret staircases, hidden chambers and a parade of characters who can only be found in the nation's capital. In four brief postscripts with equal humor, the author describes his college years, military experiences, years as a small town car dealer, and life as a road man working for an automobile company. The author's life had indeed been astonishing and then he became a writer and things got really weird. The Wrong Page is a personal narrative infused with humor and the sense of fear and confusion a young boy must confront when he is set adrift in a world within the beltway when there was no beltway. Yes, it really was that way once upon a time.