We've all heard about them. Some call them eccentric, strange, or peculiar. Others claim that they're just plain crazy. However, no matter how one classifies them, they seem to exist in just about every neighborhood. Maybe you've actually made contact with one or two in your lifetime, and maybe ...

I lived in a quiet and calm neighborhood. Through someone else's eyes, my life would have looked dull and simple, but it is the simple things in life that have the biggest influence on the development of the mind. It is like how the magnificence of the rainbow is formed by the simple components...

Perhaps, we are all a little strange in our own way. David Sedaris, in all of his writing, demonstrates the everyday absurdity of life in a way that is not pretentious, but passively observant. He does not assume that he is better than his subject, since many times he is his own subject, but instead...

Although remembering all the events that occurred between the time my mother and father got divorced, in 1986, to the present time is quite difficult, there is nothing that could make me forget my mother's strength and determination throughout the years that I lived with her. Being that I was only t...

I read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. McCourt was a Pulitzer Prize winning author in 1997. He writes non-fiction based on his life. Angela's Ashes is an autobiography about his childhood experiences. McCourt lived in Limerick, Ireland with his poor, immigrant family. He moved to New ...

"I hate life." I casually said to her roommate. "Clarissa, why would you say something like that?" Keryn said. "Life has been so hard for me. All my life, I have been the outcast white chick, my mother clearly hates me, my sister is crazy, and life sucks." I di...

"It takes a village to raise a child" is a quote that rings true in the African and African-American community. Starting with one's African roots and transcending to slavery, it was not uncommon for a woman who was not the biological parent of a child to raise him/her as if he/she were her very own ...

Show Down at Aunt''s house James Joyce is considered one of the great authors of the 20th century. He wrote several stories in his life time which included a several stories published as a group. These stories were called the Dubliners. The final story in this set was called "The Dead", which...

In Jack Hodgins latest novel, Broken Ground, the inhabitants of the small forest community of Portuguese Creek are deeply affected by its extreme conditions. Matthew Pearson, a local farmer and former soldier, has his life utterly transformed from living in Portuguese Creek. For Tanner Pearson, Matt...

The novel "The Summer of the Monkeys" written by Wilson Rawls introduced me to a character who passed from being an egocentric poor boy to a generous and loving one. He comes from an extremely poor family that lived in northern Oklahoma on a farm called Cherokee land because it was in the middle of...

My Grandfather, My MentorThe black clouds that floated in the air would simply put the worst thoughts in anybody's mind. Walking down what seemed to be a never ending hallway, the air was still and the sound of a pin drop could be heard from a mile away. As I walked down the old sterile tiled hallwa...