From the founding of Boys Town by Father Flanagan in 1917 to our own day, Boys Town represents for so many a place of family and happiness beyond imagining. Yes, a place beyond the terrors and trials of broken homes, broken promises, brutal beatings, bone chilling loneliness, feelings of being nothing, unabated fears, days without hope and nights without end. A place beyond abandonment, drugs, alcohol and suicide.
This sounds like something a brochure about Boys Town would say, not something a boy or girl who had been here would say. If that is all it is (public relations) then this book is not worth reading. But if it is one of the deepest feelings of so many kids in our family, then it behooves you to read this book.
For living at Boys Town not only gets something done (a great place that gives you good houses, good food, good skills, good schools, good times), it also gets something said (this is a place of real togetherness, real deep feelings, a real family and a place in the depths of your heart).
This is the dream and mythical reality we have worked so hard to create and preserve in good times and in bad. It is a bulwark of warmth surrounded by cold. It was almost left to die, but Providence intervened. This is that story of rebirth of this dream, this mythic reality.