Poems spanning four decades from Portland, Oregon poet and writer, David Porter. David began writing verse in high school, published his first poem "Hitchhiking In Winter" in the late 60s. He continued to write through years of raising four children and working on community projects as a way to earn a living. The poem "Thoughts While Crossing The Steel Bridge" was a runner-up in Oregon's Ben Hur Lampman poetry contest in the 1980s. With that and few other exceptions, this is his first offering from that body of work.
Eight stories by one of Japan's most important women authors concern the struggles of women in a repressive society. An unwed mother introduces her children to their father . . . A woman confronts the "other woman". . . A young single mother resents her children . . . These stories touch on universal themes of passion and jealousy, motherhood's joys and sorrows, and the tug-of-war between responsibility and entrapment.
Alabama's capital has roots all over the state. It first emerged in St. Stephens in 1799, a small fort acquired from the Spanish atop a tall limestone bluff overlooking the Tombigbee River. Next came Huntsville in the Tennessee Valley, where the state constitution emerged. Cahawba was the capital to receive a visit from the Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving general of the American Revolution. In 1826, Tuscaloosa took the reins for twenty years before the final move to Montgomery. Discover the leaders and events that established the state and the fates of each dynamic governmental center as author Jim Lewis traces the history of Alabama's lost capitals.
A biographical history of the forefathers who shaped the identity of Alabama politically, legally, economically, militarily, and geographically While much has been written about the significant events in the history of early Alabama, there has been little information available about the people who participated in those events. In Alabama Founders:Fourteen Political and Military Leaders Who Shaped the State Herbert James Lewis provides an important examination of the lives of fourteen political and military leaders. These were the men who opened Alabama for settlement, secured Alabama’s status as a territory in 1817 and as a state in 1819, and helped lay the foundation for the political and economic infrastructure of Alabama in its early years as a state. While well researched and thorough, this book does not purport to be a definitive history of Alabama’s founding. Lewis has instead narrowed his focus to only those he believes to be key figures—in clearing the territory for settlement, serving in the territorial government, working to achieve statehood, playing a key role at the Constitutional Convention of 1819, or being elected to important offices in the first years of statehood. The founders who readied the Alabama Territory for statehood include Judge Harry Toulmin, Henry Hitchcock, and Reuben Saffold II. William Wyatt Bibb and his brother Thomas Bibb respectively served as the first two governors of the state, and Charles Tait, known as the “Patron of Alabama,” shepherded Alabama’s admission bill through the US Senate. Military figures who played roles in surveying and clearing the territory for further settlement and development include General John Coffee, Andrew Jackson’s aide and land surveyor, and Samuel Dale, frontiersman and hero of the “Canoe Fight.” Those who were instrumental to the outcome of the Constitutional Convention of 1819 and served the state well in its early days include John W. Walker, Clement Comer Clay, Gabriel Moore, Israel Pickens, and William Rufus King.
Gordon Steinbrook was a young tenderfoot army second lieutenant, commissioned out of college, and newly married, when he received his orders for Vietnam in 1966. At that time the war was rapidly escalating: the United States hoped for a quick resolution of the conflict through massive amounts of American firepower and troop strength. Steinbrook was no ideologue; like so many of his compatriots, he saw Vietnam service as a job to be done, efficiently and quickly, and then home again as soon and as safely as possible. What elevates Steinbrook’s account into a special category was his assignment as an artillery forward observer with Australian and New Zealand allied troops. In the American national debate and hand-wringing over the Vietnam War, an often forgotten component of the war is the service of several allied contingents—Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders, Filipinos. The experience of these forces—who often participated in heavy fighting—has not been well reported or studied, not even in the countries that provided the troops. Accounts of the attitudes of these troops toward the war, and toward their ostensible Vietnamese and American allies, are a major contribution of Steinbrook’s book. The author has created the account of his experience through a skillful blend of memories and letters home; the result is an engaging and unpretentious depiction of what the war was like for an ordinary young man who saw exceptional service in America’s most troubling war.
An illustrated guidebook documenting the history and sites of the state’s origins Alabama’s territorial and early statehood years represent a crucial formative period in its past, a time in which the state both literally and figuratively took shape. The story of the remarkable changes that occurred within Alabama as it transitioned from frontier territory to a vital part of the American union in less than a quarter century is one of the most compelling in the state’s past. This history is rich with stories of charismatic leaders, rugged frontiersmen, a dramatic and pivotal war that shaped the state’s trajectory, raging political intrigue, and pervasive sectional rivalry. Many of Alabama’s modern cities, counties, and religious, educational, and governmental institutions first took shape within this time period. It also gave way to the creation of sophisticated trade and communication networks, the first large-scale cultivation of cotton, and the advent of the steamboat. Contained within this story of growth and innovation is a parallel story, the dispossession of Native groups of their lands and the forced labor of slaves, which fueled much of Alabama’s early development. Early Alabama: An Illustrated Guide to the Formative Years, 1798–1826 serves as a traveler’s guidebook with a fast-paced narrative that traces Alabama’s developmental years. Despite the great significance of this era in the state’s overall growth, these years are perhaps the least understood in all of the state’s history and have received relatively scant attention from historians. Mike Bunn has created a detailed guide—appealing to historians and the general public—for touring historic sites and structures including selected homes, churches, businesses, government buildings, battlefields, cemeteries, and museums..
