Lighting the Lamps is about growing up poor in New York City in the '20s and '30s, with a Scottish-born mother who took in illegal immigrant "boarders" and a father who came up from a Southern chain-gang. It's about getting polio yet participating fully in the tenement and street life of the Depression; encountering "the Desert Experience" in many NYC faith communities; and meeting extraordinary people through a great variety of jobs (from the days when a skilled buildings-engineer supervisor might be illiterate and "manual labor" included amazing feats of skill) .
