Whoever said life is a bowl of cherries was an idiot. Life is a minefield strewn with disappointment and death, a veritable hell on earth. The only proper response I can think of is to laugh my way through it all. - Max Grimes The Sunny Side of Hell frolics through the minefield of life, revealing in its blackly humorous tales the myriad ways humans attempt to navigate their way through the explosions of fate, chance and happenstance. From deadly juveniles and octogenarian rebels to pixilated spinsters and a boy who has lost his puppy, these tales reveal the dark humor inherent in the human condition. If life is a veritable hell on earth as Max Grimes claims, then what better way to respond to it than by taking his advice and laughing through it all. So read these tales, keep laughing and stay on The Sunny Side of Hell. * Bonus content this edition only, Professors Xs Famous Existential Quiz: Should I Be?
When I read stories of women on ranches, I wonder if I should consider myself a ranch woman at all. I lost that life when I was twenty years old. Then I realize in my heart I have never left the ranch. It is where I will always be. If you’d ever lived a cowboy life, it will forever define who you are. Those years defined who I am from my work ethic to my love of being outdoors and alone. The spirit of the west is alive and well in me. I’ve worked to turn every place I’ve ever lived into Sunnyside. By reading the stories I’ve written, I’m hoping my readers will feel some connection to a life I thought was so special.
You may come to the same conclusion another reader came to when I was in the early process of simply sending my stories out to gauge the interest of a potential book. She said, "You have led a charmed life." My first reaction was, "Are you nuts?" The fact is, although I grew up differently than almost all of you, I haven't had a charmed life, believe me. That sounds like in some way I have been "lucky" that I haven't experienced hardships, pain, or defeat. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I will tell you what is true, I have had a blessed life. Through it all, the Lord has kept me above my trials and tribulations, even when I didn't believe He was there. Through disappointment, death, disease, He was there. I truly believe that we all have choices to make in life. You can allow disappointments and discouragement in life to make you bitter, or you can use them to make you better. That's why I titled this book Sunny Side Up. It's how you view your circumstances and how you use them that make us who we are. To me, it's always been that simple, and before you ask, no, I am not a Southern version of Tony Robbins. I am just telling you the way I see it. So with that being said, I hope you will find some of these short stories humorous. I hope a few of them will give you pause to appreciate your blessings and one or two that will tug at your heartstrings to encourage you to be a better friend and neighbor. I know that some of these stories, if not all, will seem far-fetched or unbelievable to many of you, but like I said, I grew up differently than most of you, and my experiences in this life, to say it bluntly, are unbelievable in themselves. But this book really isn't about me at all; I am just a storyteller. I love telling stories about characters with character, and there are plenty of both in the stories before you. And before I forget, on behalf of my German shepherd Sadie and my black Lab Doc and myself, thank you for buying this book. We greatly appreciate it.
The first book devoted to this landmark of architecture, urban planning, and social engineering Situated in the borough of Queens, New York, Sunnyside Gardens has been an icon of urbanism and planning since its inception in the 1920s. Not the most beautifully planned community, nor the most elegant, and certainly not the most perfectly preserved, Sunnyside Gardens nevertheless endures as significant both in terms of the planning principles that inspired its creators and in its subsequent history. Why this garden suburb was built and how it has fared over its first century is at the heart of Sunnyside Gardens. Reform-minded architects and planners in England and the United States knew too well the social and environmental ills of the cities around them at the turn of the twentieth century. Garden cities gained traction across the Atlantic before the Great War, and its principles were modified by American pragmatism to fit societal conditions and applied almost as a matter of faith by urban planners for much of the twentieth century. The designers of Sunnyside— Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, Frederick Ackerman, and landscape architect Marjorie Cautley—crafted a residential community intended to foster a sense of community among residents. Richly illustrated throughout with historic and contemporary photographs as well as architectural plans of the houses, blocks, and courts, Sunnyside Gardens first explores the planning of Sunnyside, beginning with the English garden-city movement and its earliest incarnations built around London. Chapters cover the planning and building of Sunnyside and its construction by the City Housing Corporation, the design of the homes and gardens, and the tragedy of the Great Depression, when hundreds of families lost their homes. The second section examine how the garden suburbs outside London have been preserved and how aesthetic regulation is enforced in New York. The history of the preservation of Sunnyside Gardens is discussed in depth, as is the controversial proposal to place the Aluminaire House, an innovative housing prototype from the 1930s, on the only vacant site in the historic district. Sunnyside Gardens pays homage to a time when far-sighted and socially conscious architects and planners sought to build communities, not merely buildings, a spirit that has faded to near-invisibility
