Did you see the article in the June/July issue of Country Roads about “The Lullaby Lost” by Janet Voiles? A first-rate article and an outstanding book. Decatur County's own Mike McLaughlin is co-author.

J. Michael McLaughlin, son of Mary Elizabeth (Sheppie) McLaughlin and the late James C. McLaughlin grew up on the family farm north of Greensburg. He graduated from Greensburg High School in 1963 and from IU with a double major in Business-Journalism. He was an intern one summer in the advertising department of The Greensburg Daily News.

Drafted into the Army 14 days after graduation, he became a war correspondent in Vietnam writing for four newspapers. He won the Bronze Star for his coverage of the 101st Airborne Division’s battle for Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

Living in Key West, Fla. in 1979 when Hurricane David threatened the Florida Keys, he evacuated the island on the last DC-3 to leave before the storm. He went to Charleston, SC. where he fell in love with the historic city. He worried about how well a Yankee might fare in a place like Charleston and was warned it might be best to mention it was 'Southern' Indiana he was from.

But Charleston wasn't only hospitable to him, he eventually co-authored 11 editions of a best-selling 400-page guidebook to the city called “The Insider’s Guide to Charleston” published by Globe-Pequot Press. He's editor and principal writer for Preservation Progress, the quarterly magazine of the Preservation Society of Charleston, America’s oldest preservation organization. To see the magazine on the Internet go to Preservation Society of Charleston and click on Preservation Progress. An article in the Spring 2008 issue by Mike begins, “Some of us will recall a time when a popular folk group called The New Christy Minstrels set America's feet a'tapping to a hit tune that went 'Green Green; it's green they say, on the far side of the hill. Green Green; I'm goin' away to where the grass is greener still.' Somebody else said, 'What goes around comes around,' and it must be true...because everything these days is going 'green' again.” In the same issue is an article by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales titled, “New Buildings in Old Places.”

For six years, Mike was senior interpreter at Drayton Hall Plantation (ca: 1738) a property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. His other writings have included numerous pieces for national and regional magazines, a how-to book on effective hiring practices for personnel departments (published by McGraw-Hill), and now 'The Lullaby Lost' published by Author House, and available locally at the Decatur Co. Historical Society Museum, Rushville Pharmacy or Amazon.com. He lives on Johns Island on the grounds of historic Fenwick Plantation (built ca: 1740) just southwest of Charleston.

Mike said the story of 'The Lullaby Lost' is almost as long as the book, itself. “My co-author, Paul W. Barada, and I met as pledge brothers in the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at IU in 1963. He was from Rushville, I was from Greensburg. Although Paul and I had much in common, our backgrounds were completely different. Both of Paul’s parents had died when he was a baby. His up-bringing had been markedly different from mine. Our late night fraternity house ‘bull-sessions’ was where the seeds of this book were planted (for me). I knew back then - this was a heck of a story.”

He said his college generation was on the cusp between the eras of Dobie Gillis and Abby Hoffman. “Everything, it seemed, was in convulsion – young lives were being pulled in all kinds of directions. At IU, Paul and I made lofty plans to start an ad agency someday – one that would take a jaded Madison Avenue by storm because of its (our) fresh-scrubbed middle-American perspective. But, Paul got married and started a business and a family; I was drafted and went to Vietnam.”

Although he and Paul stayed in touch as friends, it wasn’t until mid-life that they collaborated on a book about Paul's reference checking business published by McGraw-Hill. They learned that the co-writing process would work for them. They sent ideas and chapters back and forth electronically until the project had shape and form.

Mike said, “'The Lullaby Lost ' is Paul’s story, but it’s our book, as he puts it. It's essentially a story based on facts and real people seen through a prism of fiction and time. Given enough time – say another generation or so – the line between fact and fiction may melt away completely. And it will finally be true. That’s what readers tell us. What I know for sure is, the story took its writers for the ride, not vice versa.

“Time has a way of changing everything. Paul and I never started that ad agency, but 40 years later; we're in negotiations with a publisher to begin our third book together. They say, 'If you want to make God smile – just make plans.'”