How quickly the memories fade of local and favorite hangouts that once helped define Long Beach. In this collection, Tim Grobaty remembers growing up in the fast-growing new neighborhoods of East Long Beach, the beloved places downtown that were part of the city's mid-twentieth-century fabric and a few obscure spots in the margins. Long Beach's memory lane includes the dearly departed restaurants the Golden Lantern in Los Altos and Rusty's in the Wrigley District, the Circle and Los Altos Drive-Ins, great concerts of the 1970s in the arena and auditorium and the shoppers' paradises of Uncle Al's Toy Korral in the Plaza and Buffum's downtown. Join "Press-Telegram" columnist Tim Grobaty as he records Long Beach residents' recollections and taps his own boomer-years memories.
In this reflective, light-hearted memoir, author Louis S. Rupnick chronicles his life’s journey, beginning with his childhood on Long Island and ending with the discovery of his life’s purpose, teaching. Long before his teaching career, however, a recently graduated, eighteen-year-old Lou takes off on a cross-country, Jack Kerouac-style road trip, with his trusty canine pal, DOG, and his ’56 Chevy, affectionately named Raunchy. As young Lou puts on more miles, he gathers more memories, wacky stories, and life lessons than he would ever imagine. Now almost sixty years later, Lou takes stock of his most significant experiences, from the humorous to the poignant to the downright extraordinary. About the Author Louis S. Rupnick was born and raised in New Hyde Park on Long Island, New York. Rupnick was an auto mechanic and Child Protective Services investigator and case worker for many years before entering academia. He served on a minesweeper in the USN from 1964 to 1968. He served as Professor of Psychology and Sociology at Suffolk Community College in Riverhead, New York. Now retired, Rupnick resides in Amelia Courthouse, Virginia.
Long Beach Press-Telegram writer Tim Grobaty was promoted to columnist at his newspaper back when it was still a glamorous and coveted job. In I’m Dyin’ Here, the author means two things: He’ll likely die at the job that he’s spent nearly four decades doing, and at the same time his profession, too, is seeing its last days. Weaving together personal history and a selection of columns written over the course of his storied career, Grobaty offers readers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a dying breed: the local columnist. With everyday life — fatherhood, holidays, suburbia, and random encounters with animals — serving as fodder for his column, Grobaty reveals his sources of motivation and vulnerability, all the while struggling to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing industry.
In 1889, during the Great Depression of British Agriculture, the Harnett farm in Kent, England, was suffering financially. With Britain’s refusal to tax grain imports their farm could no longer support a family of eleven children. Ernest and Julia Harnett had a hard decision to make — either leave their beloved England or give up six of their youngest children. It was something they would not do. A letter from a friend who had moved to Southern California wrote of an alcohol free, religious community, with good farm land. They made up their minds. They would move to the American Colony — created a few years earlier by a fellow Englishman, William Willmore. There they would create a new life on the Pacific Squab and Poultry Farm. Follow their journey across the Atlantic and explore their new home — an area called Burnett, close to Signal Hill, which would eventually become part of Long Beach, California. Get to know each of the members of the Harnett family through the eyes of Ivy Harnett, the first of three children to be born in America. There is Jane (Bessie), a teacher, who left an indelible mark on California history; Norah and Josie who found love and marriage in faraway Alaska; Anne, the artist; Kathleen, the top student graduate at UC Berkley; Ethel; Helen; Jack, the engineer; Tom and his milling company; Edward and Frank, Long Beach civil servants who contributed much to the growth of the city. Learn of the tragic deaths of Geoffrey, Caroline, and the patriarch of the family, Ernest Harnett, struck by a hit and run driver a few weeks after his daughter Jane’s death. This true story, is sure to entertain, taking readers to a past that once was, and a family who refused to leave any child behind.
Tales from the Briccs is a collection of short urban stories that gives one a raw and water resistant glimpse into real life scenarios that happen in ghettos all across America. Each story contains one of the perils that plague the lives of individuals living in the ghetto: money, sex, violence, gangs and prison; yet they all have positive messages that are written to entertain and enlighten a mature audience thats in search of truth through the art of fiction. Its thrilling, humorous, heart stopping and destined to make you think twice.
Elegant, brutal, and profound—this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy. In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island. In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death. Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.
“[A] witty, heartfelt debut novel about a belated coming-of-age.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Old friends discover how much has changed (and how much has stayed the same) when they reunite in their seaside hometown for one unforgettable summer—from the New York Times bestselling author of From the Corner of the Oval When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, the small town full of quirky locals, quaint bungalows, and beautiful beaches where she grew up. She knows she won’t be home for long; she’s got every intention (and a three-point plan) to win back everything she thinks she’s lost. Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman—aka “The Prince of Sea Point”—has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business, and he’s promised to help his childhood best friend, Ziggy Miller, with his own financial struggles at the same time. Kate, Miles, and Ziggy converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis when a local developer tries to cash in on its potential. The summer swells, and white lies and long-buried secrets prove as corrosive as the salt air, threatening to forever erode not only the bonds between the three friends but also the landscape of the beachside community they call home. Full of heart and humor—and laced with biting wit—Rock the Boat proves that even when you know all the back roads, there aren’t any shortcuts to growing up.
As Dede Montgomery moves through grief to accept of the death of her father, the stories in My Music Man shed light on change, acceptance, and forgiveness amid close personal relationships and Oregon's natural landscapes. The reader is catapulted into autumn on the Willamette's riverbank in the 1960s with the author and her brothers, where they discover their father's own childhood stories and the intimate relationship he shares with the land. Tales about generations of family weave between time periods, held together by the constancy of place and colored by memories of picking berries and filberts, traveling through the West Linn locks, and swimming in the river on a hot summer day. Montgomery describes small-town life in a school where everyone knows everybody, and how it felt to be an only girl in what often felt like a never-ending sea of boys.
These People Are Silently Making Millions of Dollars Online. Now, Hear Their Stories and Learn How They Did It. Look behind every breakthrough success and you'll find motivating stories of individuals who made it happen. They had a vision, took a path and persevered against monumental odds. eMillions is a collection of interviews with 14 of the world's most successful Internet marketers about their rags-to-riches stories. Get inside their brains and walk through the journeys they took to become Internet millionaires. * How a college filmmaker from Florida turned an "experiment" into a $248 million blockbuster through the power of viral marketing * How a former U.S. Army Officer turned a one-man operation into a multi-million dollar international corporation with customers in every Internet-connected country on the planet * How a 17 year-old kid with $70 in hand built a $3 million Internet company from the ground up teaching people how to play piano by ear.
Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.
