Ed Nebinger was inspired to write these memoirs by his realization of how greatly privileged he had been to be able to grow up in a wonderful part of America during the Great Depression. The Lehigh Valley is a beautiful, fertile area, surrounded by picturesque mountains, and populated by a talented and productive people of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The years he spent growing up in the Pennsylvania steel town of Bethlehem before World War II proved to be pivotal ones in our country's history. They represented a time when the U.S. was struggling through the Depression, but people never gave up and instead made the best of what they had. Looking back on those years, it was hard not to think that while we have gained much as a society, we have also lost far too many things worthy of preservation.

Above all, the Bethlehem Steel Company was the second largest steel producer in the world, and the U.S. was the leading industrial power on earth. Now that great industrial base is largely gone, having moved to other Continents, with Bethlehem Steel among the first of the industrial dominos to fall—an event of tragic proportions.

Visitors to Bethlehem today may look with dismay upon the ruins of the steel company, which stretched for miles along the Lehigh River.

Dominating the ruins are the ghostly remains of five blast furnaces, preserved apparently to remind people of the greatness that was once Bethlehem Steel.

The demise of Bethlehem Steel has been analyzed by experts of many disciplines, who rationalize that the economic bases of all first-line nations undergo evolutionary change, in keeping with world demographics and labor economics. However, Ed believes that the wholesale shedding of America's heavy industrial base has gone much too far. In his own words, "A great nation cannot let its industrial base vanish from its shores. Computers can design bridges, buildings and weapons, but they don't produce steel beams, armor plate and tanks.

Take a journey back in time when life was simple, but times were tough, and a young man used his imagination, enthusiasm and lust for life and adventure to thrive in Bethlehem, PA during the Great depression.