The story of North Carolinian Bud Lucas (1925-2018) on his own terms from primary sources. Born in Virginia during the depression, Bud was an ordinary person who lived through extraordinary times, through the rise of socialism to the invasion of Normandy, the post war boom, the Cold War, McCarthyism, the turbulent sixties, the anti-war and communal movements and all the disappointments and compromises of the decades that followed. The primary sources consist of his letters and other papers collected during his lifetime, historical information that is publicly available, and interviews and correspondence with living relatives.