I started my autobiography -- "Baseball, Golf, Wars, Women & Puppies" -- with a "grabber page" from my first trip to the Vietnam War on board the USS PERKINS (DD-877). Then, I followed with a chronological rendition which covered a trip to the Korean War and another to Vietnam during my 20 years in the U.S. Navy on three other different naval vessels, but began with the chronological format of a life of a river rat born somewhat infamously in 1932 on the banks of Memphis. My life in sports, approximately 16 years "moonlighting" as a photojournalist, my college education, followed by 12 years as executives with the Chicago White Sox (5) and Cubs (7), concluding with one of several ownerships of small companies rounded out my interesting career. I originally planned to continue with my three trips to the Vietnam and Korean Wars, including my injury and sad losses of shipmates and friends. Then, go to my childhood, parenthood, many exciting careers, etc., etc., etc. However, it didnt take too long for me to decide the categories overlap in too many places. Hence, A few years later Elvis Presley arrived on the planet and eventually became internationally famous there. Memphis, long known as the Home of the Blues, was to become also famous as the home of the King of Rock n Roll. My first high school, Whitehaven, is only a few blocks from Elvis Graceland. And, my Southside High bride and I began training our dancing shoes to the big bands of the 40s and peaked with the rocking and twisting of the 50s and 60s. Although only a senior-to-be in high school, the Korean War found me an early enlistee. Why? Because I was a youngster almost entering teenage during World War II. Everything was thrilling about the big one for a boy that age. All the toys were guns, tanks, jeeps, warplanes, etc. The war movies were always exciting and, in most cases, the hero ended up with the female star. As I was a young budding teenager, females were becoming of more interest in my life. I have never met any male whose sex life began earlier than mine (older girls are great teachers). Also, the U.S. Navy aircraft pilots were my idols. Landing airplanes on a sea-going vessel was my kind of challenge. I was so hooked that I joined the Navy to become a fighter pilot. The recruiter was surprised at how I could identify all aircraft of nations involved in WWII. I even memorized the horsepower of power plant(s), plus the cruising and maximum speed, of each airplane. My favorite was our Corsairs F4U, a gull-winged propeller fighter. It never occurred to me until this moment, recalling this tidbit, but one of these planes almost killed me. However, the moonlighting (working a civilian job at night) on shore duty between these wars helped prepare me for my career highlight era in Major League Baseball. There is no doubt about it, my leash of life is anchored to the sportsworld. My youth was playing or inventing sports orientated things. It gave me a second glance by people in the sportswriting and sportscasting fields. This all led to sports columnist and sports editor jobs in the newspaper business. This, along with learning the print business, was not only a challenge -- which I always relished -- but was mucho fun. The many hours and stress involved led to more and more alcohol. Which definitely made a honky tonk man out of me where there is plenty of wine, women, and song. The latter threesomes were like a personal little cloud that follows me throughout most of this autobiography. I wasnt able to attend college fulltime until I finished my 20 years in the U.S. Navy. Then finishing With Honors gave my mother extreme pride after her total education was a small (12 total students) high school in sticks of Mississippi. I had almost completed by Masters Degree and CA Lifetime Teachers Credential when I got into Major League Baseball and went to Chicago.

Educational resource for teachers, parents and kids!

The mixed-race Hawaiian athlete George Freeth brought surfing to Venice, California, in 1907. Over the next twelve years, Freeth taught Southern Californians to surf and swim while creating a modern lifeguard service that transformed the beach into a destination for fun, leisure, and excitement. Patrick Moser places Freeth’s inspiring life story against the rise of the Southern California beach culture he helped shape and define. Freeth made headlines with his rescue of seven fishermen, an act of heroism that highlighted his innovative lifeguarding techniques. But he also founded California's first surf club and coached both male and female athletes, including Olympic swimming champion and “father of modern surfing” Duke Kahanamoku. Often in financial straits, Freeth persevered as a teacher and lifeguarding pioneer--building a legacy that endured long after his death during the 1919 influenza pandemic. A compelling merger of biography and sports history, Surf and Rescue brings to light the forgotten figure whose novel way of seeing the beach sparked the imaginations of people around the world.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

A unique and timely exploration of the cultural impact of sport on American society, including lifestyles, language, and thinking. Sport in American Culture is the first and only reference work to provide an in-depth and up-to-date exploration of sport and its impact on American culture. Essays from more than 200 scholars, professionals, and sports enthusiasts address how sport has changed our lifestyles, language, and thinking. Arranged alphabetically, the work introduces key sport figures and national icons, with a focus on their cultural impact, examines individual sports and how they have influenced society, and discusses such phenomena as the billion-dollar athletic apparel industry, sport as big business, and the effect of sport on gender, racial views, pride, and nationalism. In addition to expected topics, the work also includes less studied areas such as myths, audience rituals, Wheaties, comic books, the hula hoop, and religion.

Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text. From woman's suffrage to Babe Ruth's home runs, from Louis Armstrong's jazz to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four presidential terms, from the finale of one world war to the dramatic close of the second, War, Peace, and All That Jazz presents the story of some of the most exciting years in U.S. history. With the end of World War I, many Americans decided to live it up, going to movies, driving cars, and cheering baseball games a plenty. But alongside this post WWI spree was high unemployment, hard times for farmers, ever present racism, and, finally, the Depression, the worst economic disaster in U.S. history, flip flopping the nation from prosperity to scarcity. Along came one of our country's greatest leaders, F.D.R., who promised a New Deal, gave Americans hope, and then saw them through the horrors and victories of World War II. These three decades full of optimism and despair, progress and Depression, and, of course, War, Peace, and All That Jazz forever changed the United States. About the Series: Master storyteller Joy Hakim has excited millions of young minds with the great drama of American history in her award-winning series A History of US. Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text, A History of US weaves together exciting stories that bring American history to life. Hailed by reviewers, historians, educators, and parents for its exciting, thought-provoking narrative, the books have been recognized as a break-through tool in teaching history and critical reading skills to young people. In ten books that span from Prehistory to the 21st century, young people will never think of American history as boring again.

An anthology of all of the Brown Dog novellas includes a previously unpublished story and follows the down-on-his-luck Michigan Native American's misadventures with an overindulgent lifestyle, his two adopted children and an ersatz activist who steals his bearskin. 35,000 first printing.