Novel Writing Techniques - On The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby is a true Great American novel. What is even more astounding is that F. Scott Fitzgerald did it in itsybitsy more than a short story. How did he do it? Essentially, he wrote a Great American Story. Fitzgerald was able to create what may be the basic story structure of 20th Century America and weave together a whole of characters that each express a different take on the problem that the structure exposes.

Let's begin with the novel's endpoints, because they tell us the structure. And the structure tells us more about how the story works than whatever else. At the start of the book, Nick tells us a story about a man he met when he went east. At the end of the book, Nick says he went back home to the Midwest.

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Looking at the story's frame tells us two key points. First, the true main character is Nick. Fitzgerald uses the third-person storyteller. So the basic structure of the story will track how Gatsby changes Nick's life. Second, Nick doesn't go west. He goes east.

Novel Writing Techniques - On The Great Gatsby

To see why this is so important to this novel and precisely all of American storytelling, we have to look at the basic moveMent of American history. That moveMent: "Go west, young man. Go west." How did this moveMent define the American character? In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote an essay entitled, "The significance of the Frontier in American History," one of the most important essays in the history of history.

The Frontier Hypothesis said:

o The frontier was the meeting point in the middle of savagery and civilization.
o As the immigrant confronted the crucible of the free, harsh land, the land transformed him from a European into an American.
o As the line of the frontier moved west, the country became gradually less English, more American.
o The most important corollary of the frontier was that it promoted democracy. When you live on the frontier, central authority disappears, and even the itsybitsy man can take operate of his own life.

How did the frontier and the move west influence American character?

o The frontier created an American who was selFish and individualistic, valuing personal free time above all, along with strength, inquisitiveness, a practical, inventive mind, and exuberance.

In short, said Turner, "America has been someone else name for opportunity." But Turner ended his essay with a crucial point:

o In 1890, after 400 years, the frontier disappeared, and with it ended the first great duration of American history.

Notice that if Turner is right, the close of the frontier means a basic shift in the American character, because the frontier is no longer exerting its power. Cut to 1925 and the publication of The Great Gatsby. We are now 35 years after the close of the frontier, and seven years after the Great War, fought among the corrupt European powers we originally fled to form America in the first place. In the America of 1925, the call of destiny is now: go east young man, go east.

In other words, the great American myth is no longer the Western, it's the "Eastern." This is precisely Nick's movement: he starts in the Midwest - solid, nothing fake - and goes east, not to make things, but to sell bonds, to make a lot of money off of money. Nick goes to make it rich in the great American city of business. Gatsby undergoes the same eastern movement: he's a Midwesterner who goes east and makes his fortune.

Gatsby's occasion to change his life, and go after this new American dream, comes with the arrival of a man named Dan Cody. Nick says Cody is " -- the pioneer debauchee, who while one phase of American life, brought back to the eastern shore the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon."

Of course, Cody's name takes us back to one of the legendary characters of the American West, Buffalo Bill Cody. Ironically, Buffalo Bill was one of the men most responsible for not only end the west but also turning it into a mythical story and a commercial spectacle for Easterners to enjoy from the relax of their seats.

One form of the "Eastern" is the gangster story. In the gangster story, instead of becoming a man of substance by confronting the land on the frontier, the immigrant enters the world of the city, of façades, of greatest differences of wealth and power. The gangster hero is corrupted by false goals and false success, by his craving for money and status. The gangster story was codified by three movies in the early '30s: "Public Enemy," "Little Caesar," and "Scarface." All were heavily influenced by The Great Gatsby. "Scarface" even makes direct steals, like the sign and the scene with the shirts.

Within the Eastern story structure, Fitzgerald places someone else structure, a uncomplicated love story. Gatsby wants Daisy. By placing the love story within the Eastern structure of going after American success in the city, Fitzgerald turns Daisy into the human expression of the American promise which is being corrupted by money and status. And love itself is twisted and destroyed.

Having set up this very clean, tight story structure, a love story set within an Eastern, Fitzgerald makes all of his characters' variations on this theme. This is one of the techniques that allows Fitzgerald to tell the Great American Story so succinctly.

Nick, the main character, is solid, substantial, and moral. He says, "I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules." everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine. I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." Fitzgerald contrasts solid Nick with Gatsby: fake, hollow, immoral and illegal. But Gatsby has one saving grace; he's going after the ideal of true love.

Nick says of Gatsby, "He smiled understandably. And much more than understandably -- [the smile] assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. precisely at that point it vanished - and I was finding at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose by comparison formality of speech just missed being absurd."

Gatsby tells Nick: "I am the son of wealthy people in the Middle West - all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years."

"What part of the Middle West?" I inquired casually.

"San Francisco."

Gatsby continues: "After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe - Paris, Venice, Rome - collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game -- I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody." Adding to this sense of Gatsby as a fake, Fitzgerald has everyone create rumors and false images of him. Myrtle's sister says of Gatsby, "They say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money comes from."

At one of his parties a woman says, "Somebody told me they concept he killed a man once." someone else replies, "-- it's more that he was a German spy while the war." Tied in with the hollow characters and the rumors is everyone's desire for status. Status is value bestowed in the eyes of others. By definition it is not substantial.

Status is a form of retention score of success: I'm good because those people are worse. Mrs. McKee says, "I approximately married a itsybitsy kike who'd been after me for years. I knew he was below me." Myrtle, talking about her husband, says, "I concept he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

One of the techniques that Fitzgerald uses is to gradually let out the real data of Gatsby's past throughout the enTire book. This has an important thematic effect. As the story unfolds, and we see who Gatsby precisely is, we find out that this story is larger than one man trying to win someone else man's wife.

Gatsby and Nick are both trying to perform the great American scheme of remaking yourself. America is the land of the eternal clean slate. When you have no past, you can be whatever you say you are. This gives you total freedom, but if it is based on deception, it can crumble quickly.

Nick says, "The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic concept of himself. He was a son of God - a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that - and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this concept he was faithful to the end."

The greatest expression of a land of total opportunism is the gangster. The ethic of the gangster is that the goal is everything. What you do to get it is nothing. Gatsby's enterprise join together is Meyer Wolfsheim, rumored to be the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. When asked about this, Gatsby says, "He just saw the opportunity." What about the character who is the object of Gatsby's quest, his grail? Daisy is precisely the dream girl. In fact she is the American dream girl.

Daisy is pretty, Airy, childlike, charming, and full of money. But she is also fully hollow, and in her case, unlike Gatsby, she has no saving grace. She is cowardly and careless. When we first meet her, Nick says about her and Jordan, "The two young women ballooned gradually to the floor -- there was an excitement in [Daisy's] voice -- a promise -- that there were gay, thoughprovoking things hovering in the next hour." When Daisy speaks she says things like: "Do you always Watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always Watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it."

Like David Copperfield's child bride, she holds her itsybitsy finger up for everyone to see and says, "Look! I hurt it -- You did it, Tom." Later, when describing Daisy's voice, Nick says, "She's got an indiscreet voice -- It's full of" - I hesitated." Gatsby says, "Her voice is full of money."

Nick's girlfriend, Jordan, is a inequity on Daisy and a foreshadowing of her actions. From the beginning, Nick wonders what Jordan is concealing. When she leaves a borrowed car out in the rain and lies about it, Nick remembers a newspaper story about how Jordan moved her ball from a bad lie in a golf tournament.

And then Jordan is driving and she approximately hits man with her car. She's careless but she doesn't care. When Nick confronts her on it, she says it's up to other people to keep out of her way. someone else technique that Fitzgerald uses to tell the Great American Story is the way he describes Gatsby's parties. They are a microcosm of the novel, because everyone there is inflated, false, and insubstantial.

Fitzgerald switches to the present tense. Observation how he describes the Party like Air or water to express swelling and falling and nothing being permanent. "Laughter is easier itsybitsy by itsybitsy -- The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, clear girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, come to be for a sharp, joyous occasion the center of a group, and then, excited by triumph, glide on straight through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light."

One of the guests confirms that the books in Gatsby's library are real. He says, " -- they have pages and all -- It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism!"

Of course, most of the guests are not invited and don't even know the host. But Fitzgerald's best technique for expressing these parties and the enTire Eastern world is the way he names the guests. These names are as good as any Dickens ever created. Observation how Fitzgerald lists the fancy names and then follows with the harsh reality of who they precisely are or what became of them.

"From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and physician Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires -- From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the O.R.P. Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk on the gravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett's automobile ran over his right hand."

Until the end of the novel, the sum total of all these actions is a few pompous parties and an unrequited love affair. But then the full moral ramifications of who these people are breaks straight through the surface, and the corollary is disillusionment and destruction.

What triggers this moral explosion is Gatsby's battle with Tom over Daisy. We see that when forced to make a decision, Daisy is a coward. She fails to leave Tom, even though he is a racist, a bully, and is cheating on her. Then she kills Myrtle in a hit-and-run car accident and lets Gatsby take the fall for it.

Then Gatsby takes the fall again, when Tom tells Wilson who owned the car and he kills Gatsby. She and Tom leave town, once again proving what cowards they are.

Nick says, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness -- and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Careless is one of the key words of the book. Careless is where flightiness and false values take on moral force and come to be destructive. The story ends with Nick's self-revelation and change. He says, "That's my middle West...I am part of that, a itsybitsy solemn with the feel of those long winters...After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that -- So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home."

At the end, Nick is not rich or flashy or glamorous. But he is authentic. And when the chips are down, he is the only one who acts as a moral, decent person. We know this because he makes a whole of moral decisions. The last thing he says to Gatsby is: "'They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.' I've always been glad I said that." He stops finding Jordan, then ties things up with her. He takes care of Gatsby's funeral and is one of the very few who attends. And finally, he goes home.

The novel concludes not just with Nick's change but also with America's change. Here Fitzgerald uses the technique of Utopia, specifically the end of a Utopian moment. Utopia is key to the concept of America. It is the greatest expression of a clean slate where you combine huge wealth with high ideals. In a Utopian place, all things are potential and all things are expected.

What utopias does Fitzgerald set up? Utopia is that one great summer with all the parties at the shore. Utopia is falling in love with that exquisite girl. Utopia is the guy who could lift himself up by his bootstraps and make a fortune. But with utopias there's always a rub. They are always temporary or fake. The endpoint is always disappointment.

So it is in Gatsby. The summer parties at the shore are full of phony hustlers and parasites sucking delight and money from their host. The exquisite girl is hollow, and a coward when the chips are down. The rags-to-riches guy is development a fortune because he is doing it illegally.

Gatsby loses his utopia when Daisy slinks back to Tom. Nick says, " -- he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream." A occasion later, he's murdered.

Then, in maybe the best final page in American literature, Fitzgerald kicks the tragedy up one final level when he talks of the lost promise of the country itself. The spiritual ideal that we started with three hundred years ago has been corrupted to nothing but material craving. But he also says, for America, the Party is over. The real value is the fields of the Republic, the land. The real value is a man of character like good ole Nick.

" -- as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world...for a transitory enchanted occasion man must have held his breath in the nearnessy of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

" -- [Gatsby's] dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic hereafter that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run Fast, stretch out our arms farther -- And one fine morning --

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

So ends a Great American Story.

Novel Writing Techniques - On The Great Gatsby

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How to Tell Good Ghost Stories

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Whether it is on Halloween night or naturally sitting colse to a campfire with your closest friends, telling ghost stories is a beloved American tradition that goes way back. The idea of procedure is to tell a story that terrifies the listeners in a frightening yet entertaining way. Typically, these short stories town on a supernatural being or occurrence such as haunted house, vampires, white gliding ghosts, monsters and psychotic humans. While most stories are fictional or urban legends, many listeners still believe some of these as they hear them from a lot of sources. Telling scary stories is a fun thing to especially if you're already good at it as your young relatives and friends will ask you to tell them your ghost stories over and over again. To be good at telling ghost stories you have to keep three things in mind.

Preparation

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Before you start finding for good ghost stories to tell, you should be aware of who your audience is first. Knowing who you're going to tell the story to is crucial because population have dissimilar opinions and takes on topics. If you're planning to tell a story with gruesome images, telling it to teenagers and young adults would be a safe bet, but not to children as imagining horrible and repugnant scenes may be too much for their innocent itsybitsy brains. That said, always remember to match the level of horror your story has to the level of tolerance your audience has. Now, there are plentifulness of urban legends out there that you can use. These comprise the "Mothman" in West Virginia, or the "Hunted railroad Tracks" in San Antonio, Texas, or the local "Big Foot" sightings, which always works well with the kids. There are far more short stories that can be found in the internet. Just visit your beloved hunt engine and type the kind of story you have in mind.

How to Tell Good Ghost Stories

Choose the right venue and have props ready

To be honest, setting the ambience is more prominent than the story itself. If you told a de facto scary story while breakFast, none of your listeners would get scared. In fact, laughter would probably be the more standard reaction than getting scared. The point is you have to set the right mood in order to tell a scary story effectively. You will need a dark room or dark outdoors, candles, firewood (if applicable), flashlights, atonal music, and a de facto low voice. The more props the better. Getting a partner to help you out in delivering the story is even great as he can help you with the effects. For instance, you can have your partner turn a fan on the room briefly so the candles would flicker, or have him slam a door while suspenseful point in the story. Be creative.

Practice makes perfect

Once you're done with the setting and props, it's now time to institution telling the story. Ideally, you should institution in front of a mirror with all the props gift so that de facto telling the story will be automatic. This also helps you recognize the right voice tonalities on the parts of the story that matter. Most importantly, learn the story by heart. Believe it, or at least make your audience believe you believe it. Gp

How to Tell Good Ghost Stories

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The American Vampire League - Dispelling the Myths

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The American Vampire League is an club that is dedicated to helping vampires. It is one of the largest of its kind and many of its members are in fact vampires. It's main objectives are to dispel all the hatred and false stories about vampires and help them to speculation into society. It is true that many vampires are also Gothic and do connect themselves with death and its symbols but at the same time they are not out to kill people.

Blogs:

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Many blogs exist about vampires and their style of living. You can join the discussions at these blogging sites and voice your opinion. Many citizen are fascinated by vampires and the Gothic way of life and you will get some enthralling discussions. The American Vampire League finds a voice on these sites as does its nemesis the Fellowship of the Sun. This club tries to fuel hatred against the vampire people. You will find some vicious comMents from followers of this organization.

The American Vampire League - Dispelling the Myths

Media:

Lots of books and movies have been produced about vampires. It is fun to look at these but most of them should be taken with a grain of salt. citizen are as a matter of fact fascinated and sometimes approximately obsessed by vampires and the Gothic way. These stories are ordinarily romantic and spine chilling tales that only make the plight of the genuine vampires worse.

Myths and legends:

There are many horrific stories and myths about vampires and their association with evil spirits and death. Of course the most beloved story is the one from Transylvania, East Europe. The story of Count Dracula does as a matter of fact have some truth, in that there was as a matter of fact an evil ruler of this area by this name. Whether he was as a matter of fact a vampire is not as a matter of fact proven. Any way it is a good Halloween story. It is stories like this that make modern day vampires feared and hated. These are the types of stories that the American Vampire League is trying hard to get citizen not to connect with the vampire citizen of today.

Dispelling the myths:

Dispelling the myths is as a matter of fact a mammoth task for the American Vampire League but they are trying their best to do so. They are trying to get a law passed that will give vampires equal rights in society. On their website there is a page dedicated to all the good things vampires have done for their neighbors. This shows citizen that vampires do think about others and can be good citizens and neighbors.

It is all about looking at citizen as they as a matter of fact are and not what community has branded them as. With the American Vampire League's efforts it is hopeful that citizen will come around, convert their attitudes, and see that vampire citizen are not the blood sucking monsters that stories depict them to be. In fact now there is artificial blood "Tru Blood" available so the vampires do not have to hunt you down for your blood but can get their snacks in packet form.

The American Vampire League - Dispelling the Myths

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American Patriot Among War Heroes - The Story of Bud Day

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As a fighter pilot who saw my share of combat while the Vietnam War, I idea I knew Medal of Honor recipient Bud Day. After all, I was once a member of the elite combat unit he formed to guide a hidden war along the Ho Chi Minh trail while the late 1960s (A unit generally referred to as "Misty" their call sign in combat). But after reading "American Patriot," I realized I was dead wrong. Robert Coram's book profiles a man with a seemingly inexhaustible stockroom of controlled courage and an unimpeachable sense of honor - all of which he gladly settled at the disposal of his country throughout his life.

The book is determined detailed and written in a manner that even the "great unwashed" who were not fighter pilots can understand. The descriptive scenes tantalizing his torture as a Pow are painful to read at times, yet I know that they were not exaggerated; and that's what makes them all the more disturbing.
 
The words "honor," "integrity" and "heroes" have been trivialized in our community to the extent that few habitancy know or care what they mean any more. In an ideal world, these subjects would be adDressed in school, or at least discussed at home. But we do not live in a perfect world; that's why I advise that "American Patriot" be required reading in every high school and college in America. This is a profound and tantalizing book about a man who history will recognize as one of the great American heroes of his time.

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American Patriot Among War Heroes - The Story of Bud Day

American Patriot Among War Heroes - The Story of Bud Day

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Radio Flyer first-rate Red Wagon - An American Story

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With all the talk about immigration both in the news and inexpressive conversation, we sometimes forget the many from the past, as well as today, who come to the United States come with the hope of achieving the American dream. Such a story was played out early in the twentieth century on the north side of Chicago. A 16 year old native of Venice Italy named Antonio Pasin, son and grandson of Old World wood craftsMen, dreamed of starting his own business in the land of opportunity.

His family had sold their mule to help pay for his voyage to America. In Chicago he looked for work as a cabinet-maker, Though he was a skilled craftsman like his father and grandfather before him, Pasin had minute success finding work, and ultimately became a water boy for a sewer digging crew.

American Stories

He paid his dues, worked hard and by 1917, Pasin was handcrafting wooden wagons in a rented one-room shop by night, and selling them by day to local stores. His first wagon, the freedom Coaster, was named after the statue of Liberty.

Radio Flyer first-rate Red Wagon - An American Story

By 1923, Pasin's business grew to comprise any employees. They became known as the freedom Coaster Company. The Roaring Twenties was a decade that began with a sense of optimism and a carefree spirit. It ended with the fall of the stock market in October 1929, and the starting of the Great Depression. But while many had to outline out ways to make-do in a troubled America, Antonio Pasin was on the way to revolutionizing his vision.

As times of the 20's grew tough, Americans learned how to make do, or simply do without. But even in tough times they dreamed of a good life for their children, and prolonged to ask the basic value that Radio Flyer delivered. Despite the rising pressures of the times, Pasin and the freedom Coaster business pushed forward.

With the automotive manufactures as inspiration, Pasin began using metal-stamping technology in1927 to furnish steel wagons - and with his eye for innovation, applied mass-production techniques to wagon-making, creating the first wagon, "For every boy, For every girl." These innovations earned Pasin the nickname, "Little Ford." by his suppliers.

In 1930, the business is renamed Radio Steel & Manufacturing from freedom Coaster Manufacturing, Co. And is already the world's largest producer of toy coaster wagons, producing 1500 of its now classic wagons. This was a decade of unparalleled uncertainty for the enTire world. For America, the Great Depression's lasted from Black Tuesday in 1929 to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

During the war wagon output was paused to build the paramount flat five gallon steel Gerry cans to furnish spare fuel Supplies for the Jeeps.

Radio Flyer first-rate Red Wagon - An American Story

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Esther Allen Howland - An American Valentine Story

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She launched a enterprise empire when she was nineteen years old. Her New England Valentine enterprise grossed ,000 in its first year and was earning more than 0,000 annually when she reTired in 1881 at the age of 53.

Her name was Esther Allen Howland (1828-1904), and today she is often called the mom of the American Valentine's Day card. Her alliances with two other early valentine makers, Jotham Taft (1816-1910) and George C. Whitney (1842-1915), would build the enterprise she started in her home into an economic powerhouse.

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In 1847, Worcester, Mass., native Esther Howland was a new graduate of the 10-year-old Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Mass., when her father received a Supply of English valentines to sell in his book and stationary store. She marveled at their lacey paper and floral decorations, but she understanding she could do better.

Esther Allen Howland - An American Valentine Story

Through her father's store she imported the materials from England and set to work. Her brother was so impressed with the results that he took samples with him on selling trips and brought back orders-so many orders that Howland had to recruit friends to help her keep up with the demand.

Soon the enterprise moved to the third floor of the Howland home where there was enough room to set up an assembly line, with each laborer contributing a piece to each card. Later she rented commercial space.

By the mid-1860s Jotham Taft and George C. Whitney also were construction reputations as valentine makers.

According to family lore, Taft was creating valentines as early as 1840; however, 1863 is the first record we have of his efforts. Taft collected materials while traveling in Europe, and when he returned to the United States he and his wife made valentines at home.

Taft later partnered with Howland but sold his enterprise to George Whitney when he reTired.

Like Howland, George C. Whitney began selling valentines out of the stationary store he and his brother, Edward, owned in Worcester, Mass. Edward left the partnership in 1869, and in 1881, Whitney bought New England Valentine Co. From Howland.

Combined with Taft's and Howland's Companies, Whitney took his firm to the next level in American valentine manufacturing. He installed machinery to make lace paper and floral decorations so the firm no longer would have to import materials from England. By 1888, the enterprise boasted shop in New York, Boston, and Chicago.

After George Whitney died in 1915, his son, Warren, took over the business. When it shut down in 1942, a victim of the World War Ii paper shorTAGe, the enterprise that had grown out of the efforts of Esther Allen Howland, Jotham Taft, and George C. Whitney was the largest valentine producer in the world.

Esther Allen Howland - An American Valentine Story

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African American Girl Doll - The Sweetness of Addy Walker

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If you date yourself back less than 25 years ago, the idea of having an African American Barbie or any other ethnic style Doll was unheard of. Every Doll had long, flowing blonde hAir and blue eyes and miniature girls of a dissimilar ethnic race was just made to accept that fact. Luckily, times have changed and there is a doll for every race, color and creeds, production a miniature girl's dream come true. Enter Addy Walker, the adorable African American Girl doll from The Pleasant Company. This firm has a dissimilar doll from all dissimilar time periods and all dissimilar places from the United States. Addy Walker is just as cute as can be, but her looks are not the only thing great about this doll. Her story is one of bravery and courage in the times of slavery and bigotry, production it a lesson for all to learn.

Addy Walker's story begins as she escapes the peril of slavery with her mom and they begin the long journey of searching for her father and brother who have been sold to someone else slave master. To make matters even more frightening, Addy and her mom are forced to leave her baby sister behind because the risk of getting caught because of her cries are too big to take. Never fear, even though there are exact lessons to be learned from any story in the American Girl collection, all have a happy ending and Addy is reunited with her family. This gorgeous doll comes with a large variety of true-to-period Clothing as well as furniture pieces that are very realistic.

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There are two ways that you can purchase these dolls. There are three dissimilar American Girl market placed in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. These market should not be missed. It is every miniature girl's fantasy with dolls, doll Clothes, furniture, a show and a café, unblemished with a booster seat and place setting designed for your special American Girl Doll friend. You can also order your doll through the American Girl Doll catalog as well as online. If you are not near an American Girl Doll store, give your daughter or that special miniature girl in your life a catalog and a pen, and have her circle some of the things that genuinely capture her eye. This will give you great ideas for birthdays, Christmas or any other upcoming special celebration. When your miniature girl opens the beautifully wrapped box of her sweet African American Girl doll, you will be introducing your daughter to a doll with a story which will give her a sense of self belief and bravery that she may not even know she had.

African American Girl Doll - The Sweetness of Addy Walker

African American Girl Doll - The Sweetness of Addy Walker

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A Great American Love Story

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A Great American Love Story

The year was 1932, the year Air conditioning was invented and the Zippo lighter. Americans were in the throes of the Great Depression and many were out of work and standing in long bread lines. Times were tough.

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The year 1932 would also mark the beginning of a great American love story that would last for 75 years and still be going strong as of this writing! This is not your typical love story, not by a long shot. But it is as a matter of fact a story filled with love, and comradeship, heartbreak, sacrifice, and sheer joy.

A Great American Love Story

It is the story of three American Men who have been best buddies since the ages of 12, and 13, when first they met and started playing sandlot baseball together. Little did they know at the time, that their new friendship would last throughout all their high school days, World War Ii, and continue to flourish throughout their lives, even though geographical locations would eventually detach them physically.

But true friendship survives length and circumstances. These three Men are living proof of that. They share a unique bond that most of us would envy. They are emotional doppelgangers of each other.

They started out in those prewar years, playing sports - varsity baseball, basketball and football, all of them excelling or lettering in one sport or another. This was their life. Life was good despite the times. They were young and all that mattered was sports and listening to, and dancing to, the sounds of the Big Bands.

Living in south New Jersey, it was only a hop, skip and a jump to the Jersey shore where they would go to the Steel Pier in Atlantic City to listen to Benny Goodman and other well known musicians. Sports, Big Band music and the three of them together. It just didn't get any better than this.

One of the men is my dad, Jack "6 for 6" Letzgus as we call him, having earned that monicker for getting a hit in 6 successive turns at bat (four singles and 2 triples). He played semi-professional ball, in one game even hitting three triples, tying a national record. Who knows what heights he would have achieved had it not been for the war. As his friend Ted Lewin said "Jack, the war interfered with our baseball careers." My dad was described as a husky third sacker, although later, years of suffering from a very bad duodenal ulcer would see his slender but well built body diminish to a mere 132 pounds on his 5'10" frame.

Our next door neighbor had commented that "Poor Jack is going downhill. I can see it each day. He won't be around long." If only she were alive today to see him a mere 2 ½ years away from his 90th birthday. She wouldn't believe it. I can't believe it either. He's even healthier today than he was in his twenties straight through his sixties. The adage "You can't keep a good man down" is apropos in this situation.

The school years were now arrival to a close. They would graduate from Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey, in 1938. But one of the three is a bit younger than my dad and the other friend. His graduation year would be different...or at least it should have been.

Jim Dunn is the baby of the three, a mere 86 now compared to my dad's and Ted's 87 years. He had skipped a grade in elementary school and for some guess he would have graduated a half a year ahead of my dad and Ted. School calendars were a bit dissimilar back then and they had half years.

Jim wasn't going to graduate without his two best buddies though, so he did something that most habitancy would not do. He purposely failed a grade so that he would be put back and graduate in 1938 along with my dad Jack, and Ted. Most kids are anxious to get out of school. Not Jim. He wasn't going everywhere without his pals.This is as a matter of fact a love story!

The three of them continued to pal around, play sports, earn a living and be happy, carefree young men. Then it happened. World War Ii. The Big One. This would be the first disjunction of these three dear friends.

Their colorful love story takes on a dissimilar hue now as members of the fAir sex gently steal into their lives.

Jim went into the Navy, positioned off the coast of Normandy on the Uss Texas during the D-Day invasion. He also served in the Pacific. Jim had met his hereafter wife, Dorothy, in the Little town in which they all grew up, aptly named FAirview. It wasn't long before sports took somewhat of a backseat to the feminine charms of Dorothy. They soon would marry.

Ted had also been distracted from all things sports as he matured into his older teens. He had met a lovely young girl named Ruth and they married before Ted joined the Merchant Marine. The years would take him around the world but his heart was all the time back in Fairview with the lovely Ruth.

My dad, Jack, received the Greetings from Uncle Sam and soon found himself drafted into the Us Army, stationed in Texas and Louisiana before being shipped out to what was supposed to be duty in the Philippines. Fate stepped in, however, and steered the ship and his life in a much dissimilar direction.

The Japanese had attacked the Philippines so my dad's ship was diverted to Australia where he would soon win a marital victory, not necessarily a martial one. There, in Melbourne, Australia, he met the love of his life, my mother, the great Australian beauty, and dancer, Iris Robertson.

The times being uncertain, as they are during war years with no one knowing what would happen in this unstable world, whirlwind courtships, and marriages were not uncommon. Within four months of meeting, my mum and father married.

During these years, the best buddies were settling down with their wives and the children started arriving.

I was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. My dad was sent to Hollandia, New Guinea, and after a long time, was shipped back home to the Us, where my mum and I joined him 8 months later. He had been away from home for practically 5 years, a sacrifice hard to fantasize today.

Jim and his wife had four children and relocated to Arizona precipitated by the poor health of their middle daughter who suffered from severe asthma. The dry, desert heat would help her, they reasoned, and off they went - an additional one rent in the rich tapestry of the three friends' lives, but a important one.

Meantime, enhancing the love story, Ted and his wife Ruth had three children, all boys whom they named Jack, Jim and Ted! Ted, Ruth and boys moved to California, motivated by a breathtaking Job chance for Ted. He landed a Job with Shiley Corporation where he invented the blood oxygenator used in cardiac surgery. Years later he would be named California creator of the Year.

With Jack still living in New Jersey, Jim and house in Arizona, and Ted and house in California, the visits were not as often now as any of them wanted. They stayed in touch though by telephone and letters and the occasional visit. How breathtaking it would have been for them had they been able to avail themselves of the Computer technology with webcams of today, but none of them can be persuaded to try it.

My parents' marriage would last for 50+ years, ending only because of the devastating disease of Supranuclear Palsy that would claim my mother's life and make my dad the first widower of the three friends, a most unwanted distinction.

Sadly, Jim's wife, Dorothy was the next of the wives to pass away, she of cancer, after 50+ years of marriage.

It wasn't long before Ted would join their ranks of widower, when his wife of 50+ years, Ruth, passed away a few hours before 9/11.

The three best buddies were now widowers and living far apart from one another. How strange that all three of them would outlive their favorite wives when statistically women outlive men. After Ted's wife passed away, Jim remarked how startling it would be if all three of them could share a house together and share the rest of their lives together, to be close together again, to play a Little ball together in their twilight years. But life happens and we all must make the most of what we have left.

Jim now spends his time running marathons and invariably comes home with a gold medal. So far, he's won 9 of them. He quips that there aren't many 86-year-olds to compete with him. Ted spends his days golfing, and reading, and enjoying the California lifestyle. My dad, Jack, who is as witty and humorous as he ever was, spends his time writing poems and limericks and recently had a short story that he had written during the war, bound and printed. These men are not going gently into that good night. They are an inspiration to all who know them.

Jim visits Ted in California from time to time. Before their wives passed away, Jim and Ted and wives visited my dad and mum in Florida where they had relocated years before. It was a breathtaking reunion. Their conversation was centered in general around, of course, sports! No one knew it at the time but this would probably be the last time the three best pals would be together.

My dad hates to fly. So the three of them confine their caress to phone calls and letters. But what breathtaking phone calls they are. They can spend hours on the phone talking about "the good old days" of their youth, their sports accomplishments and breathtaking reminiscences of 75 years of profound friendship, of three lives well lived, and well loved. The love story that began all those years ago continues, and may it continue for many more years for these three excellent gentlemen. I love them all!

A Great American Love Story

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The Native American Wolf

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Since the beginning of time, the Native Americans have been associating their lives with that of animals in the wildlife kingdom. One of the most misunderstood of these animals is the wolf. For years, the wolf has been seen as an aggressor, when in reality they are very loving and social creatures. This side of the animal was first seen by the tribes of the Americas. The Native American tribes recognized this and they have incorporated the wolf into many of their myths and legends. The wolf will forever be connected with the Native Americans, and studying more about this relationship can help one to great understand the world of Native Americans.

One can look to the many tribes of the Native Americans to see stories that tell about wolves. The Sioux, Cherokee, Lakota, and others all have stories about how the wolves helped in the developMent of man. The creation story of the Cherokee has a wolf in it as well as the story of the woman who was left behind in the Lakota tribe and the wolf saved her. Just as Romulus and Remus were supposedly saved by a she wolf and they then founded Rome.

American Stories

Wolves have been in the world of Native Americans since the beginning. They are revered not only for their vigor but also for their endurance. Wolves can withhold life with diminutive Food or water for highly long periods of time. This was something that the Native Americans hoped for in their own selves.

The Native American Wolf

Today, the wolves can be seen in numerous Native American arts. They are depicted by Watching over habitancy while they sleep or as a journey to the spirit world. Owning these magnificent creatures is not something that most are encouraged to do, however, you can own a piece of Native American art that showcases these anticipated creatures. If you do not live in or near an Indian reservation or land, then you can use the internet to quest for gorgeous artwork that is all hand made by Native American artisans. Everything from wolf jewelry to wolf dream catchers can be placed online. Often you will see woMen with the wolves in Native American art due to the stories that depict woMen and wolves together.

The Native American Wolf

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