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The ten-year-old boy stops in at Lou J’s Café on Walnut Street in Oglesby, Illinois, a small town of 4,200 (1960 census) just across the Illinois River south of LaSalle and Peru and 90 miles southwest of Chicago. He comes here about two or three times a week after school has let out at Washington Grade School.

Oglesby’s business district runs for a couple of blocks down Walnut and includes a Ben Franklin store, Lou’s Grocery, Royal Lanes Bowling Alley, two drug stores, a dry cleaners and a dozen bars. Across the street from Lou J’s is Clydesdale’s Furniture Store that at one time had been Oglesby’s movie theater. That piece of Oglesby history might have been lost on him, but what isn’t lost on him is that he has enough allowance for a Cherry Coke and an order of French fries for the times he comes here each week.

School has already started and there’s a hint of autumn in the air. Sometimes he stops in with a friend from school; other times he is alone. Makes no difference to him. At least when he’s alone he doesn’t have to share his fries.

He passes men hunched over the afternoon edition of the Daily News Tribune at the lunch counter seated on wobbly stools, the linoleum around their base worn from years of traffic. Some grip heavy, white mugs of freshly brewed coffee. The aroma of burgers sizzling on the grill (each patty with a slab of onion on top) wafts through the café. A basket of frozen, crinkled fries is dropped into boiling, bubbling oil.