Have you ever seen the Wall Street Journal commercial where two twins are separated at birth? One reads Fisherman Magazine and the other reads the Wall Street Journal. The one that reads the Fisherman Magazine still lives at home in a dirty house and wears a red checked shirt. The one that reads ...

Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time" begins with the telling of two stories. The first is about the author, who awakes in the middle of the night, afraid of a possible intruder. Then, to distract her mind, she creates a second story. The story is a fairytale of an affluent family liv...

As I walked down my old street, I felt an unprecedented anxiousness. Would they let me in or would they turn me away only to the cold lonely street. I remember this day from when I was forty years younger, a time when I was happy, when I had loved my family, and I was not alone. This was my l...

My Dear Family: 12 September, 1914 I am writing to tell you I am fine and well and have arrived in the great city of New York. I must tell you that the journey was long and hard. It was a twelve day trip aboard the S.S ...

Summary of Chapter 1 Malachy McCourt was born and grew up on a farm in Toome in Northern Ireland. Angela Sheehan was born in Limerick in Western Ireland. She grew up in Limerick with her mother, her two brothers Thomas and Patrick, and her sister Agnes – or Aggie as she is commonly called. An...

Background Gary Soto was born on April 12, 1952, in the farming community of Fresno, California, to Mexican-American parents. In his essay "Being Mean" he talks of how his father and grandfather worked at the Sun Maid Raisin Factory and his mother peeled potatoes at Reddispud. Soto'...

Left Behind "Our existence is but a breif crack of light between two eternities of darkness" --Vladimir Nabokov, 1947. Three years ago, my family and I moved to Erie, Michigan. Our old one story home was scooted up to a ranch style house built in the late 1960's. Kay Luis li...

UNFORGETTABLE DAY Even though I am living in the United States now, I still keep in my mind a very frightening incident that happened to my family in Viet Nam when I was a little boy twenty years ago. Before this event happened, I had had a very wonderful childhood. I lived happily with...

Coming of age is a time of trials and triumphs in a young adolescent's life. It involves many obstacles that need to be over come in order to become an adult. However obstacles are not the only things that a youth will encounter. Through the journey they will happen upon successes and trium...

A day I'll never forget At the young age of 51, my best friend Mary A. Tolbert, my grandmother was taken away from me by a sudden "massive heart attack." Living in Sacramento I had just left my grandmother's house. Earlier that Monday evening in September my grandmother ha...

Chapter 1 In chapter one the main character Maia Wojciechowska wakes up from a dream to the sound of a plane. She thinks it is her father's, but when she runs outside with her new puppy to see, Maia finds out that it is not her father's plane. The plane flies over parallel with her runn...

Throughout history all different parts of the world have been devastated by natural disasters. Whenever something created by nature destroys a certain area of the world, people tend to group together and overcome such a tragedy. Our tale will begin in one of the busiest and diverse places in the...

The lifetime accomplishments of Hetty Green all started at a young and tender age when she would hang around the docks her father owned, where she was instilled with a certain attitude towards business. She was quite a tomboy, understanding the lingo of the whalers and learning the business. She w...

Conrad Vs. Holden Getting over a traumatic experience can be troubling to anyone, especially when the experience deals with a close family member or friends. Whether the problem is feeling unloved by your parents, being rejected by your friends or even having suicidal thoughts, the result can be ...

Broken "What made my life different from the parable is that both of my parents did have claims. And in order to remain whole, I needed both of them, but that seemed not to be an option. Something inside me was not just depressed but dividing, cracking, splintering, pulling me back and fo...