Book excerpt: This story begins in Bay City, Louisiana, at a time when everyone left the front door unlocked, and car keys remained in the car either in the visor or the floorboards. Everyone slept with the windows open because the only means of cooling was the attic fan or swamp coolers. Sweet was the air of innocence. In Swamp Water Tales, author Tarver Wooten shares a collection of stories and adventures from his life in this small town in Louisiana and the challenges of growing up as Sicilian-German in a military community, where the sentiments from the war were still fresh. He narrates stories of wandering from neighborhood to neighborhood without a care in the world during the barefoot days of summer and playing along the stretch of the Red River. This memoir offers a look at how a child grew into a teenager in a place that was home, a place where his friends were, and a place where everything he knew about life was there.