About N.C. Pratt

I am certainly present in the main character, Ken Pine. I was present in South Korea in 1968 and ’69, as a classified message courier. Thus became Ken’s position in the army and the location for the story. Most of the rest of the story is observation, exaggeration, or complete fiction. With one exception, The ‘Battle of Chicago’, Chapter 2.

I was not only present and described my personal views and opinions of the 1968 demonstrations as a witness, but I am actually the “Hippy Youth” pictured in the September 9, 1968 “Newsweek” magazine on page 28, hanging the “Welcome to Prague” sign under the city’s “Welcome to Chicago” sign. Below me at that moment the Chicago Police were beating up unarmed demonstrators with truncheons. An alert network photographer at the scene put it on the live feed nation-wide and at the Democratic convention which stopped the Proceedings. That incident is described in chapter 2 on page 55 of ” Tall Tale” and then the subsequent discovery of the picture is described on page 63…..

The similarities between the anti-war protests of 1968 and 2024 are uncanny and are only compounded by the fact that once agian, the Democratic convention will be in Chicago in August. Ironically, the photo from the 1968 ” News Week” is currently floating around on social media. ” I Didn’t Do It! ” The picture from ‘Newsweek’ magazine can be seen right here on our website.

Read about that experience of 56 years ago and enjoy a hilarious tale of “Smokin and Smugglin”

You can get a paperback copy of “Tall Tale” from Amazon or download a Kindle digital copy. You may also pick one up at your favorite bookstore!