<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0zfLt9_1H2vUUJl00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0zfLt9_1H2vUUJl00" width="450" height="500" ><figcaption>Orange Hat Publishing</figcaption></figure>The Cap Times is an independent newsroom. Sign up for the Opinion Roundup newsletter for weekly Madison and Wisconsin viewpoints.I just wrote a column about Stu Levitan's "Madison, the Illustrated History, 1932-1979," a powerful documentation of the city's years, as Levitan describes it, "through the heart of the 20th century."On its heels comes another book about our fair city, this one by Madison native Patrick McGilligan. It's a lively remembrance of growing up in downtown Madison during a big chunk of Levitan's 20th century years.The title, "The Good Life," is a takeoff on the 1948 Life Magazine cover story, "The Good Life, Madison, Wisconsin," with photos by famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, that proclaimed Madison as one of the best places to live in America.Actually, McGilligan, a noted film historian and an acclaimed biographer of the likes of Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood and many others, was born three years after that Life Magazine cover, which is still fondly recalled nearly 80 years later.Longtime Madisonians may remember Bill McGilligan, Patrick's father, an expert upholsterer and the owner of McGilligan's Furniture store, which in its early newspaper ads would brag that famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright was one of its many customers.The McGilligan family lived at 512 E. Gorham St., next to what was then Conklin Park, in the heart of Madison's downtown 4th Ward, noted for always electing an Irish-American to represent the neighborhood on the City Council. Those Irish Council members, incidentally, included Patrick's older brother, Dennis, in the early '70s.Patrick, who now lives in Milwaukee after traveling the world on his literary pursuits, has collected his memories of growing up in the "good life" of Madison in a delightful 256-page book that captures a more innocent era in the city's history.McGilligan's account is full of stories of kids growing up next to Madison's lakes, which back then stunk during summer algae blooms just like today, the games they played, the trouble they caused, the fun they had and the people in their lives.There's the parochial grade school at St. Raphael's, the high school at Central, life on the university campus and all the experiences along the way. His memories of St. Ray's and its stiff-collared monsignor are priceless. His admiration of the nuns amusing.Much of McGilligan's memories were shaped by his Cap Times newspaper route. Starting at age 12, he delivered to homes and businesses around the Square, stopping at the oid Fess Hotel, Snappy's news shop on King Street, Frautschi's funeral home, the old Buy and Sell Shop.His awareness of the world around him was shaped by reading the headlines of the papers he was delivering and his memories forever shaped by the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the bombing of the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center and the gruesome story of Vilas Park's elephant, Winkie, stomping a 3-year-old girl to death.The McGilligan home where Patrick and his siblings grew up is long gone. It was one of five homes in the 500 block of Gorham Street that were condemned to make room for the expansion of James Madison Park, which was the new name for what had always been known as Conklin. He tells how his dad and mother were heartbroken by it.Patrick McGilligan's book, which is currently available at most bookstores, is an enjoyable and nostalgic look at a family, a city and a time when, yes, we mostly lived the good life.</div></body>

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The Cap Times is an independent newsroom. Sign up for the Opinion Roundup newsletter for weekly Madison and Wisconsin viewpoints. I just wrote a column about Stu Levitan's "Madison, the Illustrated History, 1932-1979," a powerful documentation of the city's years, as Levitan describes it, "through the heart of the 20th century."

Opinion | Remembering a simpler time

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The Cap Times is an independent newsroom. Sign up for the Opinion Roundup newsletter for weekly Madison and Wisconsin viewpoints. I just wrote a column abo

Opinion | Remembering a simpler time

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