THE REJECT BENCH

As described in Readers’ Favorite Review by Vincent Dublado…
“James H. Morgan magnificently captures the nostalgia of the 1960s. There is power in the recollection of ordinary people chronicling their experience in specific times in history because it gives a powerful illustration of how ordinary citizens lived and witnessed history… The beauty of The Reject Bench is that Morgan skillfully blends both the mundane and colorful episodes in his life and how they are shaped by the events of the times. How he views the looming war in Vietnam captures the sentiments of a considerable portion of the American population about a war they didn’t want … A sweeping and intelligent memoir, The Reject Bench is a celebration of growing up and a powerful look into the past from a deep, personal view.”

The Reject Bench…
In June, 1961, the Morgan family moved from their little house in a blue collar neighborhood in Upland, California to a bigger and better house in Claremont, five miles away. Jim Morgan had just completed his freshman year, and he was not happy about leaving his Upland friends, who claimed he was moving to Snob City. But after nearly a full year of solitary lunches at his new school, he finally made a couple of friends, and over the next two years, other transfer students found their way to their group, a group that occupied a bench that one of them christened the Reject Bench.
While normal life was proceeding as it does, the world was in turmoil. The Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. By high school graduation, in June of 1964, the Vietnam War was beginning to dominate the news, slowly escalating at first, then rapidly expanding. The military draft grew to accommodate the war’s intensifying manpower needs, a Sword of Damocles for young men of that era. The Reject Bench is about Jim and his friends and how they lived in those trying times.
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