Leroy “Satchel” Paige was born July 7th, 1906, the seventh child (out of twelve) and third son to be birthed to Lula and John Coleman Paige in Mobile, Alabama. Leroy’s life was immediately difficult, mainly because he was born in a family that was struggling with poverty. His father was a gardener, and unemployed, while his mother was a domestic servant. It was a constant and fearful struggle to have food on the table. Leroy’s parents did their best, but Leroy and his siblings had to go without toys in their childhood. Leroy recalled, “We played in the dirt because we didn't have toys. We threw rocks. There wasn't anything else to throw.” Leroy found school to be boring and was uninterested in education and often skipped school in order to go fishing (possibly so that his family would have something to eat) and play baseball. He didn't totally neglect his responsibilities though. , In order to help with providing the family of fourteen with necessities; Leroy took up odd jobs such as delivering ice or collecting and reselling empty bottles. An interesting fact about Leroy is that h...
Herschel Walker was born in Augusta, Georgia and grew up outside of Wrightsville, Georgia for the first eleven years of Herschel life he did not show any interest in sports; he preferred reading books and writing poetry. At age ten he went to the Doctor for being overweight at age 12 he began a crash exercise program. Over the next years he did 100,000 pushups, 100,000 sit ups and sprinted thousands
Charles Halloway, a passive inactive seed, chooses not to grow. He resists the urge to flourish, to change and become the greater man he unknowingly could be. This becomes evident when Halloway, employed as a janitor at the library, is staring out the window and spots the boys. The time is three in the morning, yet he does not call out to them to so he can walk home with them. “ “Jim!” called the old man. “Will!” But not aloud. The boys went away toward home. Charles Halloway looked out into the country.” (54)
It is an emotional and heart-rending chronicle about raising in the dirt-poor of the Alabama hills--and all about moving on with the life but never actually being capable to leave (Bragg, 1997, p. 183). The exceptional blessing for evocation and thoughtful insight and the dramatic voice for the account--notifying readers that author has gained a Pulitzer Award for this featured writing. It is a wrenching account of his own upbringing and family. The story moves around a war haunted, alcoholic person (Bragg's father) and a determined and loving mother who made hard efforts to safeguard her children from the harsh effects of poverty and ignorance, which has constricted her own living standard. In this account, author was talented enough to create for himself on the strength of his mother's support and strong conviction. He left house only to follow his dreams and pursue a respectable career in life, however he is strongly linked to his ancestry. In addition, the memoir shows the efforts of Bragg in which he has both compensated and took revenge from the cruelties of his early childhood. Author's approach towards his past seems quite ambivalent and
He was born in Mobile, Alabama called “Down the Bay” on February 5, 1934. His real name was Henry Louis Aaron. He was the third of eight children. His mother’s name was Estella and his father’s name was Herbert. His dad was a tavern owner and a dry dock boilermaker’s assistant. His mother did not have a job until Hank was older. He lived in a town where there was segregation. Hank lived where it was rural and it was a lowly populated town. The town was fueled by a migration of farm workers looking for city work. Hank took an early interest in sports. Although the family had little money, and Hank took several jobs to try to help out, he spent a lot of time playing baseball at a neighborhood park. He had jobs such as mowing lawns, picking potatoes, and delivering ice. He started to love the game when his father’s local team formed out of the tavern he opened next to the family house called The Black Cat Inn. He played baseball with the local kids in the wide open fields. Until too many children to take care of at home, his mother worked in one of Mobile’s white households, where work was available for blacks as maids and cooks. Hank and his family moved to Toulminville, right outside of Mobile, at the age of eight.
The Sandlot is a classic sports film that shows how the role of friendship plays in children’s development. The story takes place in a small suburb outside of Los Angeles in the summer of 1962. The main character “Smalls”, just moved to the town with his mom and step dad. He doesn’t really know how to make friends but started watching a group of boys that walked to the ‘sandlot’. Smalls has always stuck to science projects, so baseball is a new subject to him. The step dad has a love of baseball so when Smalls goes into his office he has trophies and a baseball signed by Babe Ruth. Smalls wants to be able to connect with his step dad, so he tries to learn how to play baseball with the guys.
Gatto begins his article by explaining that boredom is an everyday issue in modern schooling. Teachers struggle with boredom due to the attitudes and behavior of students and find it exhausting to teach kids when they behave in an immature manner. However, students also become frustrated with the repetition of useless information, as well as being forced to fit society’s standards. Gatto shifts the focus to his thoughts on the importance of mandatory schooling. He thinks that the lengthy school days are completely unnecessary. There are homeschoolers who go without the eight-hour school days and become just as successful as others. For example, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln- who are historical icons- received little to no schooling at all. Mandatory school attendance did not become important until the early 1900s when James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in Prussia during
Bandouliere bags played an important role in Cherokee and southeastern native life. They were symbols of prestige and wealth and were often used for religious ceremony or given as political gifts. These bags were never completely commodified, and their production all but ceased when the tribes in the Southeast were moved onto reservations in Oklahoma. Beadwork held prestige due to its time consuming nature and cost of production. Each tribe and region has their own way of working with beads. Although there are some similarities, color choices, design and the role beading played in the community greatly differs between them. In the Cherokee tribe bandouliere bags were mostly crafted by women for use by men in the tribe. In the Southeastern region,
Coach Harold Jones was an assistant varsity football coach at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, North Carolina. One day he saw a young man mimicking the signals he was giving the boys on the field, and invited the boy over, offering him soda and candy. This boy was James, and at the time he could not read, write, or talk. It became obvious to Coach Jones that James was mentally handicapped, and he invited him to more of the football practices. When the football team saw how obsessed James was with his small radio, they gave him the nickname that he would end up...
He lived a life without parental guidance. His mother left him with his father when he was only 4 years old. James was often left alone while his father traveled to turpentine camps selling tar for a living. James recalls the times he spent alone walking around in the woods looking for doodlebugs, and playing a harmonica his father gave him. During this time alone, he never had anyone around to talk to but himself (Brenchley, 2003).
Ellison spent four years at all-black Douglass High School from 1929 to 1933. In order to help with household expenses he held a number of odd jobs, which included mowing lawns, hawking newspapers, working as an elevator operator, shining shoes, and jerking sodas at the Randolph's Drug Store. Through his childhood during the cotton-picking season Ellison's classmates would go work in the field with their parents and came back home with new black jokes and stories, which Ellison had...
The Rosetta Stone was found in a small delta village called Rashid which is known to Europeans as Rosetta. The stone is a black slab that is now called granodiorite. The stone is over a meter high, 28cm thick and weighs over three-quarters of a ton. On the face of the stone there are three scripts engraved onto it: Greek, demotic and hieroglyphs. Interestingly enough, upon translation the three scripts are found to say the same thing but with slight variations. Napoleon’s army originally found the stone but surrendered it to the British once being defeated at the Battle of the Nile by Admiral Nelson in 1801. The stone being taken during war does not give the British the right to keep it. The stone should be returned to Egypt due to simple ethical reasoning. If Britain were to hand the stone over to Egypt, this would not be the first time war spoils have been returned to their rightful owner. Agreements have been made
“I'm a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't.” F. Scott Fitzgerald said this and it is very apparent that he feels this way in The Great Gatsby. In this novel filled with the experiences of a group of supercilious, rich, white people, Fitzgerald shows this with the many symbols he uses throughout the novel. Among the most arresting are the Green Light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock, which Gatsby envies for, the color white, which deceives readers with Daisy’s deceitful beauty, and the Eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, which sees all wrong done by the characters.
Jean Louise “Scout” and Jem Finch experienced life in the 1930’s living in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Their childhood was a nonstop adventure that brought jocund days and testing trials that teenager’s today experience even with the world around us changing every day. The moral upbringings, educational importance, and the crime rate of small towns all contributed to the childhood memories that were built every day in Maycomb County. These attributes to childhood experiences have changed a lot over the vast time period between the 1930’s and 2000’s. The moral upbringings are different in the way that children living now are experiencing a different surrounding in their everyday life and have lost morals that were taught in the 1930’s. Education is more important now than in the 1930’s because of the many laws that have been established to keep children well educated to help them succeed. Living in a small town had many advantages like the low crime rate; crime rate has risen and caused an effect on small town life. There are many similarities as well as differences between the childhood in the 1930’s and the 2000’s. The changes that have occurred affect my life as a young Alabamian every day in many ways.
Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1911, he was the second of the Williams’ three children. By his own candid accounts, he described his family situation as being troubled, to put it lightly. His parent’s marriage was ordinarily tense, most likely as a result of his father’s alcoholism, physical intimidation and neglect. Thomas’s kindred troubles did not end with his parent’s unpleasantness, his beloved older sister, Rose, was institutionalized as a young woman and remained in care for the reminder of her life. He, himself suffered a mental breakdown, following his recuperation he moved to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee, this move invigorated his lifestyle and provided him with a new source of inspiration.