The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

The Boy Crusaders was a Boy Scouts-type summer camp located in the Ozark Mountains. Charlie White attended the camp as a young boy, living in the woods with other kids and teens for a month. Some teen campers later accused the leader of the camp of sexual assault. Von Drehle presents White’s experience at the Boy Crusaders as an early instance of White navigating a complex social situation on his own, foreshadowing the independent and resilient spirit he would show throughout his life.

Prohibition refers to the years of 1920-1933 in which alcohol was prohibited throughout America. During Prohibition, the federal ban on alcohol sales inadvertently created a black market for these goods. Von Drehle describes how Kansas City, Charlie White’s hometown and place of work, had a thriving black market for alcohol.

Bootlegging entails the illegal making or selling of goods. During the Prohibition era, black market merchants and gangsters bootlegged alcohol to clubs, where it was illegally sold to customers. Von Drehle describes how Kansas City was rife with gangsters trading alcohol during the 1920s. White met some of these bootleggers in his work as a doctor.