These are the stories of a girl's life while growing up in a small town called Red Bank. As they say it takes a village to raise a child And this is my village.
Growing Up in Rat City and Beyond is the autobiography of noted White Center, Washington resident Alexander Sasonoff. The 230 page tome, illustrated by the author himself, chronicles his years growing up in the often rough and tumble suburb of Seattle. Chapters include descriptions of the post depression, pre-war years of the blue collar town and it's colorful residents, including stories about the skipper of the purse seiner 'Loyal' Vic Carlsen, prizefighters Harry 'Kid' Matthews and Al Hostak and all the boozing, brawling regulars that inhabited the town with the rodent moniker.
In Growing Up Guggenheim, Peter Lawson-Johnston—a Guggenheim himself, and the board president who oversaw the transformation of the renowned museum from a local New York institution to a global art venture—shares a personal memoir that includes intimate portraits of the five people principally responsible for the entire Guggenheim art legacy. In addition to first-hand biographical accounts of his grandfather Solomon Guggenheim (the museum’s founder), his cousin Harry (Solomon’s successor), and his famously rebellious cousin Peggy (whose magnificent Venice art collection he helped bring under New York Guggenheim management), the author tells the stories of long-time museum director Thomas Messer, who initiated the bold expansion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s original museum building, and current director Thomas Krens, whose controversial tenure has featured such innovations as the Guggenheim’s wildly successful first international outpost in Bilbao, Spain, and exhibits devoted to fashion and motorcycles. Lawson-Johnston also traces his own career, from his first job as sales manager of a remote feldspar mine, to his rapid ascent to the family summit, to his extension of the Guggenheim legacy in ways none of his predecessors could have envisioned. Despite his native and tangible humility, this evocative narrative makes clear Lawson-Johnston’s indispensable role as the loyal steward of one of America’s most famous family enterprises.
Growing Up Black in America are the stories of a Black American female with Sickle Cell Disease and her personal experiences with the systemic racism and prejudice I have witnessed and received. It starts from the birth of black children, and the health care system. The teachers, and the school system, the religion we are taught. The police, with their harassment and straight up murders. The justice system, with their school to prison pipeline, and laws written specifically to arrest the black male and separate the black family. The church's that funded the kidnapping of African slaves. And the racist parents that continue to teach this cycle of hatred and judgement of others, generation after generation. We all have our stories, and these are mine. And after hundreds of years, we are still left with the same unanswered question; "What have we, as the black American children of kidnapped African slaves ever do to deserve such hatred?" {AND THIS IS WHY WE PROTEST}
In its early years, Red Bank was a place where Sigmund Eisner, a Jewish emigrant from Austria, could arrive with empty hands and build a manufacturing empire that served the nation. It is a place where families like the Irwins could make a home for generations: Capt. Edward Irwin started his marine business by the side of Red Bank's Navesink River in 1884, and his great-grandson Channing still runs the family marina by the water. It is the place where Thomas Edison experimented with sonar and where the Dorn family launched a photographic dynasty that has chronicled the life of the community for more than a century. It is a place where the Drs. Parker, a family of black physicians, earned an enduring place in the hearts of Red Bankers by caring for its citizens, both black and white, with skill and kindness. Red Bank is a place where Bruce Springsteen could start off playing at high school dances and end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These are only a few of the legendary locals of Red Bank.
From modest beginnings, Elizabeth Clare Prophet rose to become one of the world's most compelling, charismatic and controversial spiritual leaders. Her life and accomoplishments have been chronicled by others. But never, until now, has there been a firsthand account. In this book, Elizabeth Clare Prophet tells the story of the search for her life's mission during her first twenty-two years. It provides an unflinching view of the struggles and triumphs that helped define her life. This memoir is a glimpse into the life and character of an extraordinary figure in new Age spirituality. It offers an intimate look into what it means to be a mystic in today's world.
From a small-town New Jersey girl to a world-renowned new age teacher, Elizabeth Clare Prophet underwent a remarkable transformation. At age twenty-four, she began taking "dictations," or messages, from a group of saints and sages known as the ascended masters. By age forty, she was called Mother and Guru Ma by thousands of followers, and also known as a prophet (her real last name). She had also begun to be labeled a controversial cult leader. Now at the age of seventy, she publishes a memoir of her early years. In never-before-released material from interviews, letters and diaries, she explores her spiritual quest from birth through age twenty four. Part I describes a conventional upbringing in 1950s small-town America. But, as she reveals, the roots of her spiritual quest were there from an early age, expressed in childhood in her remarkable devotion to the proto new age Christian Science. She tells how her religion helped her to cope with her father's alcoholism and the childhood onset of epilepsy. Part II reveals her teenage ups and downs, experiments with Eastern thought and modern philosophy, and an early marriage to a fellow Christian Scientist. Finally, she describes her choice to make the radical change of leaving that marriage to follow Mark Prophet, who became her teacher and second husband. The work is threaded with her descriptions of the presence of God that she believes overshadowed her from the moment of birth. She tells how that presence led her into a spiritual work that touched the lives of thousands. This revealing, personal journey probes the very essence of spirituality.
For more than three decades, Bruce Springsteen’s ability to express in words and music the deepest hopes, fears, loves, and sorrows of average Americans has made him a hero to his millions of devoted fans. Racing in the Street is the first comprehensive collection of writings about Springsteen, featuring the most insightful, revealing, famous, and infamous articles, interviews, reviews, and other writings. This nostalgic journey through the career of a rock-’n’-roll legend chronicles every album and each stage of Springsteen’s career. It’s all here—Dave Marsh’s Rolling Stone review of Springsteen’s ten sold-out Bottom Line shows in 1975 in New York City, Jay Cocks’s and Maureen Orth’s dueling Time and Newsweek cover stories, George Will’s gross misinterpretation of Springsteen’s message on his Born in the USA tour, and Will Percy’s 1999 interview for Double Take, plus much, much more.
From mayors and mummers to tap dancers and gamblers, South Philly has it all. This quintessential Philadelphia neighborhood boasts a complicated history of ethnic strife alongside community solidarity and, for good measure, some of the best bakeries in town. Among its many famous people South Philadelphia claims Marian Anderson, Frankie Avalon, Mayor Frank Rizzo, Temple Owl's coach John Chaney, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, and "Loving" soap opera actress Lisa Peluso. For South Philadelphians, whether they stay or leave, the neighborhood is always happy to give you their opinions, and in this book they talk about their favorite subject to Murray Dubin, award winning journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who also called South Philly home. Music and the arts are part of everyday life. Baritone Elliott Tessler says, "I'm not a celebrity, I'm a minor curiosity. If Pavarotti lived here, he would just be a minor curiosity, and probably because he was fat more than because he sang." Jean DiElsi remembers finding work in 1943 as a cashier at a diner that would become a South Philly landmark. "It was the only diner around and it was open 24 hours. If you went to dances, everybody would go to the Melrose Diner afterwards...No, there was no Mel or Rose. it was named after a can of tomatoes. In addition to being Philadelphia's first neighborhood, South Philly is the oldest ethnically and racially mixed big-city neighborhood in the nation. Catherine Williams remembers growing up black on Hoffman Street, "We had everything. We had the Jews, we had Italians, we had the blacks, we even had a Portuguese family. You never knew there was a color thing back then. I was the only black in my class at Southwark, but you never knew. In the third, fourth grade, some of those Italian boys was big, but you would have thought they were brothers to me." These are some of the people and the opinions that make up South Philadelphia and Murray Dubin will take you on a resident's tour of the ultimate city neighborhood. But for every interview, there's also a lot of history. And Dubin provides an historical examination that spans 300 years, from Thomas Jefferson living in South Philadelphia in 1793 to the burning of Palumbo's in 1994. Whether you're a South Philadelphian yourself, or just want to understand the South Philly phenomenon this book is a must. Author note: Murray Dubinwas born in South Philadelphia and is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.