Ryan's Woods: A South Side Boyhood Fifty Years Ago

The year is 1962. The family of fourteen-year-old Kevin Collins, caught in white flight, has moved from Beverly, its South Side of Chicago neighborhood, to the city's northern suburbs. The field of Kevin's most formative boyhood adventures was Ryan's Woods, the great South Side forest preserve, mysterious, beautiful, running along the city's western edge a full mile from 83rd Street to 91st. It now serves as the frame for his memories. Memories of a villain enemy, of games hard-fought as wa...