This Boy's Life Part 4, Chapter 7 Summary

  • Dwight really loves listening to Lawrence Welk. This somehow makes him even creepier.
  • Norma graduates from high school and immediately becomes a little roadrunner dust cloud on the horizon.
  • Norma moves down to Seattle and meets another man named Kenneth, then constantly calls Jack's mom for advice.
  • She says she's going to marry Kenneth, and bring him up to Chinook for Christmas. Dwight goes all out to make the place look homey: cutting down a tree and painting it white to within an inch of its little life.
  • Norma tells Bobby she's getting married to someone else. He doesn't take it well and Norma ends up crying. She's clearly still carrying a torch for him.
  • Kenneth arrives. He's an ultra-religious nondrinker who tells everyone how sinful they are. For some reason, everyone hates him.
  • Norma married Kenneth anyway, despite Dwight's almost psychotic efforts to stop her (and believe us, this is a man who knows the meaning of "psychotic effort.")
  • Norma has Kenneth's baby, takes up smoking and gets way too skinny.
  • Sometime later, Jack sees Bobby Crowe and calls him "Bobo," which was Norma's pet name for him. Bobby gets angry.
  • On Christmas Eve, Dwight remembers the chestnuts Jack had shucked. They're covered with mold, as it the dead beaver. The mold on the beaver makes it match the animal's original shape.