“That’s my middle-west”: Nick Carraway’s Christmas Memories

One of my all time favorite passages from The Great Gatsby concerns Christmas and the Midwest. The passage comes towards the end of the novel as Nick Carraway is describing the aftermath of Gatsby’s murder and preparing to leave New York. There’s something about this passage that captures that exhilaration of returning home for the…

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Wolfhound: James Jones In World War Two

Hawaii. December 7, 1941. On a tropical Sunday morning the drone of Japanese fighters emerges over the U.S. Army’s Wheeler Field next to Schofield Barracks. Billowing plumes of smoke rise into the air as American fighter planes are destroyed. Men whirl about in confusion and fire desperately at the Japanese bombers overhead. In the midst…

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An Autumn Classic: “Hang On Sloopy” and the OSU Marching Band

It was fifty years ago–on October 9, 1965– that The Ohio State University Marching Band first played the McCoys’ monster hit “Hang On Sloopy” during an OSU football game. The song has become a football season staple ever since, traditionally played during the transition from the third to the fourth quarter. Whenever I recall my…

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America’s Teacher: William Holmes McGuffey

American educator William Holmes McGuffey, famous for creating his McGuffey Readers, an influential series of school texts in 19th century America, was born on September 23, 1800 in western Pennsylvania. He received a sparse education in his childhood and youth, but learned enough to eventually teach in the one-room country schools of rural Ohio after…

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Ray Bradbury: Born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois

Today would have been Ray Bradbury’s ninety-fifth birthday. He was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. Except for a couple of brief moves to California and Arizona in his childhood, Bradbury spent most of the years from birth to age fourteen in Waukegan before the family permanently relocated to Los Angeles, California. Although…

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Jesse Stuart’s “Hie to the Hunters”

Recently on this blog I profiled the noted Appalachian author Jesse Stuart. Stuart, born in Greenup County, Kentucky in 1906, was a prolific writer who published novels, short stories, essays, books for children and youth, and autobiography. His memoir of teaching in rural Kentucky, The Thread That Runs So True, published in 1949, has long…

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A Force of Nature: The Life and Work of Jesse Stuart

He was born in Greenup County, Kentucky, the son of poor parents who moved from one Kentucky hill farm to another, working hard to make the land pay. His father was illiterate. But he would grow up to become a prestigious and highly paid writer who traveled the world and eventually owned all the land…

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Paul Dunbar’s “Majors and Minors:” Published 120 Years Ago.

One hundred and twenty years ago the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar published the volume that propelled him into wider prominence: Majors and Minors. This was Dunbar’s second volume of poetry. His first, Oak and Ivy, appeared in 1892. Both books were the products of a 19th century self-publishing deal. Dunbar contracted on credit with the…

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