America's Boy Author:Wade Rouse Growing up "different" in the rural Ozarks - a place that made the fellas from Deliverance look like the Jonas Brothers - wasn't easy for a little boy like Wade Rouse, a Winnie-the-Pooh children's clothing model with a love of pageants, pie and pretty ascots. — While country schoolmates sported crew cuts and dreamed of being farmers, Wade sported... more » a feathered 'do and dreamed of being Robbie Benson. Wade's whacky family didn't make growing up any easier: Wade's father, an extroverted engineer, insisted on calling everyone "honey" -even male gas station attendants-and his mother, a chatty nurse, never stopped talking.
And Wade's All-American older brother excelled at rural activities, like hunting and fishing, that Wade hated. Every summer, Wade's eccentric kin packed their clothes in garbage bags and drove to their log cabin on Sugar Creek in the Ozarks. And it was amidst this simple beauty that Wade found refuge from his everyday struggle to fit in-until a sudden, terrible accident took his brother's life and changed everything. Afraid to lose the love of his remaining family, Wade chose to bury not only his brother but also his identity and burgeoning sexuality, and forget them for a very long time.« less