The story of a life in, and interacting with, the 20th century and parts of the 21st. It moves from the postwar influenza pandemic to the tumultuous Jazz Age of the 20s, the Great Depression, and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Four years of World War II are recounted from a personal viewpoint. Navy customs and procedures are treated in passing, while the work of US Naval Medical Research Unit #1 is covered in more detail (influenza initially; TOP SECRET research on Bubonic plague eventually).

The story turns to war in the Pacific in 1944 and to 18 months of intense training on ground-to-air communication between landing craft and pilots, preparing for the invasion of Japan. Post-Hiroshima activities blend into accounts of two mutually supportive individuals experiencing the good, bad, the mad and hilarious, at college campuses throughout the land.

Also includes discussions of modes of teaching and learning, especially as they concern higher education in America.