About Surviving 1963 Volume One
100% of the proceeds of this book are donated to Lincoln’s Promise Food Pantry at the Coatesville VA Medical Center in honor of WWII Army Officer 1st Lt. Morris C. Brown and Navy Veteran and Persian Gulf War Veteran and spouse FC1 Ronald Oberne.”
Set in rural Florida, Surviving 1963 (Volume One) follows eight-year-old Elaine as she fights to survive extreme poverty and childhood shame. At school, she faces a strict teacher, cruel bullies from Slab Town, and the daily humiliation of carrying a ragged brown lunch bag with meager food. At home, her family lives in a fragile, heavy silence to protect her father, Morris—a former American undercover spy who is completely broken and bedridden by severe World War II flashbacks.
When the financial pressure forces her mother to work grueling hours as a diner waitress to keep a roof over their heads, the household structure fractures. Her father moves into a small trailer on an uncle’s lot, completely unable to work. Desperate for a treat, Elaine and her little brother Joey file copper pennies down to pass as dimes for root beer, surviving on the pity of a kind storeowner who respects their father’s past. The volume ends with a massive shift: Elaine and Joey are left with total, unsupervised freedom on their dirt lane, setting the stage for the next chapter of their survival.
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