Nonfiction

Book Reviews

Christopher Hitchens. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2009. 317 pages, $14.99
Reviewed by Laura Hildebrand

Christopher Hitchens is hailed by some as one of the brightest journalists today. A man extremely well known for stating his opinion on religion, her has created yet another controversy with his recent book entitled God Is Not Great. It is obvious that he feels strongly against any kind of religion, and his writing style makes his readers feel as if they should feel the same way.
With valid points and several legitimate arguments, Hitchens maintains that religion poisons society and that the "theories'" of religion really are contradictory. He provides his readers with descriptive and vivid images of hazardous encounters he has had with religion. For example, he tells a story about men being shot to death in foreign countries by others who claim to be "believers." The text goes on to say that the men who were killed brought it on themselves because of writing a book on a "monotheistic religion." With this, Hitchens reiterates his point of contradiction: it does not make sense that if everyone believes in some sort of "higher power" considering that cruel and inhumane acts are committed on a daily-even hourly-basis.
Hitchens makes it very clear that he is a strict atheist. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of his readers to know that just because he is an atheist does not mean he commits malicious and heartless acts.
There is a huge difference between a moral Christian and an atheist who is "nice."Although Hitchens's ideas on religion present some valid points, his writing is presumptuous and prejudiced. He mentions the terrorists from September 11, 2001, According to him, those attackers were quite possibly the strongest believers on the face of this earth. If those terrorists believed in some sort of "god," Hitchens argues, who is to say that any other religion believing in a "god" would not commit the same acts of violence? The writing becomes almost predictable in that the reader can read Hitchens's opinion about 9/11 and assume that he is going to begin talking about how religious believers are put on a so-called "pedestal," but still seem to be the majority of terrorists and criminals.
Based on Hitchens's writing ability alone, there is no question that he is extremely intelligent and well educated in his field. Throughout the entire book, however, Hitchens's thoughts and rants are all over the place-he has so much to say and that makes it difficult to present the material in a clear and logical manner. Readers need to read this book slowly and really contemplate Hitchens's arguments; otherwise, they will be lost by his jumping around from scenario to scenario.
From a Christian perspective, Hitchens presents all religions with a harsh and somewhat unrealistic theme and viewpoint. At the end of his book, he states his acknowledgements and says he has been writing this book his entire life and will continue to write throughout the rest of his life. Essentially, he spent a significant amount of time collecting and analyzing data that had any sort of religious correlation, and with his own atheistic views, manipulated everything to sound derogatory toward Christianity and any other "higher power" religion.

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Linda Lee Chaikin. Threads of Silk. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008. 336 pages, $13.99
Reviewed by Anna Stuckey

Set in France, Threads of Silk is a novel that can capture the audience of any book lover. This Christian novel is the third of an ongoing series. Preceding this book are Daughter of Silk and Written on Silk. The Silk House series is based on real characters' actual lives with a fictional embellishment. The author also includes fictional characters to make the story a little more interesting. Chaikin wrote these books as historical fiction thrillers and romance novels with a Christian perspective all rolled into them.
Mademoiselle Rachelle Macquinet is in love with a man named Marquis Fabien. It is, however, a forbidden love. The Queen Mother Catherine de Medici does not want them to marry, but they will do anything to marry before the Queen Mother can find them and force Rachelle to marry Maurice. They flee and attempt to hide from the Queen Mother, but before they know it, they are part of the Queen Mother's evil murderous scheme. They must rely solely on their faith in Christ to save them and have their own happily ever after.
As Rachelle rides through the city of Bourbon, she remembers all of her childhood dreams of marrying in this city, giving birth in this city, and raising her family in this city. With her current situation, she knows she no longer can, but for Fabien she is willing to change those plans. She knows they must leave the city and possibly the country in order to marry.
Meanwhile, Fabien is trying to figure out where they can go to get married where they will not be detected by the Queen Mother. He would like for Monsieur John Calvin to marry them, but it would be too risky. Another fear Fabien has about marrying Rachelle so quickly is that he knows her father would not approve. He grew up Catholic and even though he no longer practices Catholicism, Rachelle's father does not want to have anything to do with Catholic blood. Rachelle, however, does not care. She only wants to marry Fabien as soon as possible whatever it takes in order to avoid marrying Comte Maurice per Catherine de Medici's request.
There are several convenient aspects to the books in this series. First of all, at the beginning, there is a glossary of each historical character. Secondly, towards the end, there is a glossary of the French terms that are used throughout the story. Third, there are family trees listed in case you get confused on how each character relates to another. Finally, there is a brief summary of each preceding book in the series. In this book's case, there is a summary of Daughter of Silk and Written on Silk.
This is one series that is a must-read, and you will not be able to put it down. You will find yourself longing to read the next chapter as soon as you finish the previous. You will find yourself longing to read the next book in the series as soon as you finish the previous as well. Guaranteed, you will not get anything else done.

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Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1852. Introduction and notes by Amanda Claybaugh. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003. 530 pages, $5.95
Reviewed by John J. Han

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) is one of the most important-and one of the most controversial-books in American literary history. The antislavery novel, which sold more than 300,000 copies within one year of publication, played a significant role in starting the Civil War. Recognizing the contributions Stowe made in opening up the discussion of slavery, President Abraham Lincoln reportedly greeted the author with the remark "So this is the little lady who made this big war."
In the early and mid-twentieth century, "Uncle Tom" gained notoriety as a demeaning term signifying emasculated blackness. Some of the criticisms directed at the novel seem justified: The author did not have firsthand knowledge of slave life in the South, the plot is somewhat melodramatic, and characters in the novel-especially Uncle Tom and Little Eva-are over-simplistic. Stowe's novel, however, reflects her indignant condemnation of slavery as an evil institution incompatible with Christian ideals. More importantly, Stowe embodies her Christian moral vision for America by using biblical parallels for her title character.
In her introduction to the Barnes & Noble edition of the novel, Amanda Claybaugh offers several examples of the affinities between Tom and Christ:

From the opening chapters [of Uncle Tom's Cabin], there are echoes of Christ in Tom's words and actions, suggestions that Tom somehow resembles Christ. When he learns that he is to be sold, for instance, he refuses to attempt an escape or even to protest, for he knows that if he is not sold then his family and friends will be instead; he chooses to bear all suffering on their behalf. At the end of the novel, however, this metaphorical similarity moves closer and closer to allegorical identity. First, Tom is consoled, at his moment of great despair, by an ecstatic vision of the crucified Christ. Later, when Tom is himself enduring similar torments, the narrator tells us that Christ "stood by him" (page 476), and the witnessing slaves confirm Christ's proximity to Tom by asking him, "Jesus, that's been a standin' by you so, all this night!-Who is he?" (page 477). And finally Tom stands in Christ's own place. He repeats Christ's final actions, wondering whether God has forsaken him, praying that God will forgive those who are tormenting him, and through his death redeeming the two criminals at his side.

Claybaugh's comment is convincing. Indeed, there have been controversies on the identity of the Christ figure in the novel. Some critics argue that Little Eva is the Christ figure or that at least both Little Eva and Uncle Tom are co-Christ figures. Rather than a Christ figure, however, Little Eva is a Christian who practices imitatio Christi-a likely candidate for an ideal Christian Charles M. Sheldon envisions in his bestseller published in 1896, In His Steps: "What Would Jesus Do?" As death approaches her, Eva is compared to other precious, beautiful children in the world who have died prematurely: "Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their names are always on grave-stone." She is one of "so many of the fairest and loveliest." Furthermore, Eva does not undergo excruciating suffering or die a martyr's death as Uncle Tom does.
Uncle Tom is the only Christ figure in the novel: Tom is Christlike in his personality and suffering. Like Christ, Tom is meek, humble, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking, and self-sacrificial. A conspicuous characteristic of Tom's personality is his meekness and humbleness. A man of little worldly education, Tom is a man of spirituality who practices Christ's command to be the least on the earth for a reward in heaven.
In Chapter 40, which is properly entitled "The Martyr," Tom tells his evil master, Simon Legree:

Mas'r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I'd give you my heart's blood; and, if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I'd give 'em freely, as the Lord gave His for me. O Mas'r! don't bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than 'twill me! Do the worst you can, my troubles 'll be over soon; but, if ye don't repent, yours won't never end!

Legree, however, strikes Tom with his whip, and Tom falls to the ground.
In Christlike fashion, Tom voluntarily presents himself as a sacrifice for others. Tom is strong and brave enough to subdue his evil master, yet, like Christ, he chooses to embrace physical death. Tom is represented as a pacifist Christ-the kind of Christ figure who practices what the Sermon on the Mount teaches.
What directly motivated Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed law enforcement officials to capture and return all runaway slaves to their masters without a fair trial. Stowe thought the law was morally flawed.
Indeed, Stowe's indignant voice against the evils of slavery sounds prophetic. Chapter 31, "The Middle Passage," is prefaced by a verse from Habakkuk 1:13: "Thou are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man is more righteous than he?") Stowe's target is white churches which are "silent" while witnessing brutalities against "brother-man and brother-Christian." She calls for action.
In evaluating Stowe's writings, John R. Adams maintains that "her distinctions between right and wrong were arbitrary and her judgments were pontifical." Then, he continues:

She could never have understood such a concept as "the fortunate fall." There was none of Emerson's "Brahma" in her universe. The Faust theme-the symbol of a man who could cooperate with the Devil and yet achieve ethical greatness-was alien to her thought. Unlike Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, or Whitman, she never suspected that sin might also be somehow moral. (Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Twayne, 1963; p. 142)

This comment seems to deviate from the orthodox Christian understanding of right and wrong which emphasizes moral clarity. Interestingly, all four American writers whom Adams lists are from the Romantic period of American literature which has a different perspective on sin. Stowe's call for personal and social justice comes from the biblical prophetic tradition. Indeed, Stowe was a revolutionary novelist in portraying a black slave as a Christlike figure, thereby arguing that the black race, much like the white race, is an inheritor of divine grace. Reading-and rereading-Uncle Tom's Cabin with an open mind will reveal the author's genuine heart for African Americans and her unflinching Christian moral vision.

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Richard Wright. Haiku: This Other World. Edited and with Notes and
Afterword by Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. 304 pages, $14.00
??????????, ?????????. ?HAIKU(??)-??????
(Japanese translation of Richard Wright, Haiku: This Other World). Tokyo: Sairyusha (???), 2007. 362 pages, ¥2800
Reviewed by John J. Han

In American literary history, Richard Wright (1908-60) is primarily known for his two masterpieces, the novel Native Son (1940) and the autobiographical memoir Black Boy (1945). It would be a surprise to some readers that he was also a superb haiku poet. According to the introduction by his daughter, Julia Wright, the poems selected for publication in Haiku: This Other World were composed during his exile in France, "throughout the last eighteen months or so of his life" (vii). She notes that the poems reveal a lesser-known, "enigmatic" aspect of her father: they make one wonder "how the creator of the inarticulate, frightened, and enraged Bigger Thomas ended up leaving us some of the most tender, unassuming, and gentle lines in African-American poetry" (vii).
The co-editors of the volume, both of Kent State University, explain that in 1960 Wright selected 817 haiku out of approximately 4,000 haiku he had composed, under the title This Other World: Projections in the Haiku Manner. The manuscript, dated 1960, is now deposited in the Wright collection in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (xiii). In editing the manuscript for this volume, Hakutani and Tener corrected only misspelled words while retaining Wright's typography (xiii).
The poems in this book are numbered 1 through 817 with no sectional divisions. Except for several pieces, Wright's haiku abide by the traditional rule of 5-7-5 syllables. Each line begins with a capital letter, and the third line of each poem ends mostly with a period but occasionally with an exclamation point or a closing quotation mark. Although the use of a 5-7-5 syllable format makes Wright's haiku sound somewhat verbose and contrived, they still use many season words (kigo) associated with the Japanese haiku tradition, exhibit the poet's knack for capturing haiku moments, and demonstrate his ability to employ keen images.
Most poems in Haiku: This Other World portray the tranquil beauty of nature and the temporality of earthly life. Wright illustrates a snow-covered train this way: "The arriving train / All decorated with snow / From another town" (#526). The poet also describes the easily overlooked splendor of spring dew: "The guard on duty / Sees all visitors except / The beads of spring dew" (#804). In poem #650, a red rose at its peak evokes both a sense of wonderment and a sense of impending doom that awaits all living things: "How could this rose die? / This rich red color perish? / This sweet odor fade?" Wright's poem about a petal and a bird also concerns the fleeting nature of all phenomenon: "In the still orchard / A petal falls to the grass; / A bird stops singing" ((#743).
Other poems capture a sense of loneliness as reflected in nature. In poem #723, Wright projects his desolateness onto a mountain peak this way: "In the afterglow / A snow-covered mountain peak / Sings of loneliness." Poem #785 illustrates Wright himself as a lone traveler: "I see nobody / Upon the muddy roadway / In autumn moonlight." Meanwhile, in poem #787, the poet draws a parallel among his sense of emptiness, a blank sky, and a deserted road: "This autumn evening / Is full of an empty sky / And one empty road."
Some poems address light-hearted topics with a touch of humor. In poem #525, Wright tells of horses as instinctive animals as follows: "Only the horses / Really know the exact hour / When snow fell last night." In another poem, the poet playfully portrays his own shadow: "As my delegate, / My shadow imitates me / This first day of spring" (#532). Finally, as he encounters an undressed scarecrow, Wright exclaims, "It is so hot that / The scarecrow has taken off / All his underwear!" (668)
While the whole body of work in the volume is striking in their adoption of vivid images, some works lose immediacy because of the use of the past tense. (In her 2002 book Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide, Jane Reichhold recommends avoiding the past tense in haiku writing: "Always write in the present tense of here and now."-p. 76) Poem #560, for instance, reads, "For seven seconds / The steam from the train whistle / Blew out the spring moon" (italic mine). Poem #734 also reads, "A magnolia / Fell amid fighting sparrows, / Putting them to flight" (italic mine). These two haiku would sound more instantaneous if Wright used "blows" and "falls" in place of the two italicized words, respectively.
Another stylistic characteristic of Wright's haiku is the frequent use of adverbs which end in -ly. Here is an example: "The leaves and the rain / Are whispering hurriedly / Under growling skies" (#649; italic mine). The word hurriedly is good for making the second line a seven-syllable line, but it sounds over-descriptive and prosaic, not evocative. Other adverbs Wright use in his poems, some of which sound awkward, include "absentmindedly" (#653), "sighingly" (#690), "eagerly" (#700), "stubbornly" (#701), "dryly" (#706), "waitingly" (#750), "musingly" (#751), and "livingly" (815). As Jane Reichhold suggests, adverbs should be used in a haiku only if they are absolutely needed (73-74, 78). Despite these small complaints about Wright's poetic style, Haiku: This Other World collects outstanding works that deserves a place in a personal library.
The co-editors' Afterword also offers a brief introduction to the genre of haiku. This is one of the best essays on the origin of haiku, on the philosophical underpinnings of haiku, and on the way haiku should be written. These days there is a mistaken notion that haiku is an easy, elementary form of poetry; some of the haiku posted online or published in popular magazines are not really haiku in the true sense of the word. Anyone who wishes to gain a better understanding of haiku will find Afterword both insightful and instructive.
The excellence of Wright's volume is evidenced by the fact that it has been translated into Japanese, the native language of haiku. The Japanese edition, whose text is printed in columns from top to bottom and moves from right to left, translates the entire volume, including Introduction, Editors' Note, the poems, Notes on the Haiku, Afterword, and Notes. At the end of the book, the co-translators also add a seven-page commentary on Wright, his literary career, and his haiku in general. In each poem, the English version accompanies the translated version, and for the convenience of Japanese readers, the co-editors also created a descriptive title for each poem in Japanese. The Japanese translation was published by arrangement with Julie Wright, c/o John Hawkins & Associates, Inc., through the English Agency (Japan), Ltd. It is a hard-bound edition that appears to be meticulously translated (at least based on my limited proficiency in written Japanese) and is designed in an exceptionally handsome manner.
I would like to thank Professor Yasuo Hashiguchi, a renowned John Steinbeck scholar in Japan, who kindly sent me a copy of the translation by airmail in May 2008 after learning that I am a haiku poet. As is the custom, the annual conference of the John Steinbeck Society of Japan, held at Hiroshima University in 2008, was preceded by a reception. Several members of the Society gave a brief talk at the reception, and at my turn, I mentioned my haiku writing. After my departure from Japan, the professor mailed me the Japanese edition with the note "For Professor John J. Han / In commemoration of our shared Steinbeck meeting in Hiroshima / May 29, 2008 / [signed]." I occasionally leaf through the book, not only enjoying Wright's poetry in the Japanese language but also appreciating my friendship with Professor Hashiguchi made possible by the shared love of words-the words of Steinbeck and now of haiku.

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Jackie Hardy, compiler. Haiku: Poetry Ancient & Modern. Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 2002. 256 pages, $15.95
Reviewed by John J. Han

This anthology of a 5.5" x 5.5" size collects excellent Japanese-language haiku translated into English and English-language haiku written Western poets. The four haiku masters of pre-modern Japan-Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki-are well represented; other Japanese poets selected for this volume include Boncho, Chiyo-jo, Gyodai, Kikaku, Kito, Kodojin, and Santoka. The Western haiku poets include such well-known figures as Lee Gurga (former editor of Modern Haiku magazine), William J. Higginson (author of The Haiku Handbook), Cor van den Heuvel (editor of The Haiku Anthology and co-editor of Baseball Haiku), and Jackie Hardy (compiler of the current volume). Overall, the collection offers a wonderful sampling of haiku produced in both East and West.
The poems in Hardy's volume are arranged in five thematic sections: wood (?), fire (?),earth (?), metal (?), and water (?). According to Hardy, the five elements represent in Chinese philosophy "the spirit of initiation and dawn," "the feverish activity of midsummer or midday," "the energy of the afternoon and the late summer," "the energy of the evening," and "the floating, restful time that is winter or the night," respectively (18-19). Each page of the volume contains one or two haiku, and numerous colorful illustrations taken from traditional Japanese paintings add meaning and beauty to those poems. The front cover design is a nineteenth-century illustration of Murasaki Shikibu (???) composing The Tale of Genji (????, Genji Monogatari; written c. 1000-1025), the first novel in the world.
Most of the poems in Hardy's volume are focused on nature. Some works simply portray the beauty and wonder of nature. Gyodai's poem "lighting the candles / in the thatched temple / plum blossoms fall" (104) contrasts two events that take place simultaneously: lighting the candles and the falling of plum blossoms. ("Plum blossoms" and "plum tree" are two of the many season words indicating spring in traditional Japanese haiku.) Buson's agricultural haiku, "tilling the field / the cloud that never moved / has gone" (140), expresses the speedy passing of time from the perspective of a farmer. Meanwhile, L. A. Davidson describes a skeletal tree as observed in the morning: "winter morning / without leaf or flower / the shade of the tree" (53). ("winter morning" is a kigo indicating winter.)
Other poems in the volume express a variety of personal emotions through nature. Observing the dying charcoal fire, Shiki notes the fleeting nature of human life: "this charcoal fire- / our years fall away / in just that fashion" (89). In Rose Wilson's poem, the speaker connects her "scar" (a mark left on the skin or perhaps a mark of a painful past) to the natural world: "I look at my scar / remembering the dark crimson / of autumn roses" (114). In his poem "on this mountain / sorrow...tell me about it / digger of wild yams" (144), Basho identifies the natural setting (a mountain, Mt. Bodai) and then address a yam digger, asking him about the "sorrow" of the mountain temple that is now in ruins. These pieces illustrate the way a description of a natural scene reflects "a state of mind or being or a philosophy" (Jane Reichhold in the aforementioned book, p. 74).
One can learn many lessons about haiku writing in Haiku: Poetry Ancient & Modern:

· use a concrete, evocative image;
· do not state but imply;
· most haiku use a sentence fragment, not a complete sentence;
· use lower-case words throughout the poem except for proper nouns;
· use concrete nouns and action verbs, minimizing the use of adjectives and adverbs;
· use the present tense;
· use the gerund (the -ing form of a verb) if needed;
· if possible, eliminate articles (a, an, and the); and finally,
· indicate a break (kireji-a "cutting word" used to divide the haiku into two parts) by using a dash (--), a comma (,), a colon (:), or an exclamation point (!) at the end of the first or second line.

Hardy's volume anthologizes exemplary haiku after which aspiring poets can model their works. As T. S. Eliot noted in his 1919 essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," a poet cannot simply ignore the poetic tradition; a poet's excellence and individuality lies in his or her fusion of past and present. Since the Japanese form of haiku was introduced to Europe and North America, it has become increasingly Western in its sense and sensibility. In its traditional form, haiku reflects the typical Eastern mind crystallized in Kobayashi Issa's poem about the temporality of earthly life: "This world of dew / is only the world of dew- / and yet...oh and yet...." It is unavoidable for a poetic form to experience change as it is transplanted in another culture, yet it is important for the poet to understand the tradition of the form before developing his or her own individual voice. Haiku: Poetry Ancient & Modern is highly recommended for all haiku lovers. It is an excellent source for understanding the tradition of Japanese-style haiku; not only the poems but also the many illustrations will gratify tender poetic souls.

"Progress, Energy, Prosperity":
Nineteenth-Century St. Louis in Mark Twain's Fiction and Nonfiction[1]
By John J. Han

Introduction

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi approximately thirty miles to the east. As is well known, Twain's most celebrated novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), made Hannibal a famous literary destination, drawing numerous Twain enthusiasts from around the world to the town every year. In the two novels, Hannibal appears as St. Petersburg, which is the main setting of Tom Sawyer and the starting point for Huck and Jim's trip down the Mississippi River in Huckleberry Finn.

Mark Twain's Statue of Tom & Statue of Mark

Birthplace Huck Twain

Marker Florida, MO Hannibal, MO Hannibal, MO

A thriving city 100 miles to the south, St. Louis is not used as a main setting of any of Twain's novels. However, St. Louis figures prominently in his memoir Life on the Mississippi (1883) and is mentioned a dozen times in his novels Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). This presentation examines how the city of St. Louis is portrayed in Twain's works. We will first look at St. Louis in Mark Twain's time and then examine the passages related to St. Louis. This study will demonstrate that St. Louis played a nationally significant role in economic, industrial, and cultural areas in the mid- and late nineteenth century.

The Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century-St. Louis's Glory Days

Currently the Greater St. Louis area is not among the top ten metro areas in the United States, and the City of St. Louis itself is the fifty-second largest city in the country in population ("St. Louis, Missouri"). During the nineteenth century, however, St. Louis was a nationally prominent hub of commerce, trade, and manufacturing in the Midwest. From 1840 to the end of the century, the city's population exploded with the steady influx of settlers of various ethnic backgrounds-Germans, Irish, Italians, Serbians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Greeks, among others. By the 1890s, St. Louis was the nation's fourth largest city, and by 1904, the city grew enough to host a World's Fair: the Louisiana Purchase Exposition ("About St. Louis: History"). Although St. Louis was lagging behind Chicago as a national rail hub, it was still a vibrant city. The Wainwright Building-a 10-story structure built in 1892-was one of the world's first skyscrapers. St. Louis was prominent not only in the fields of business and industry. At the turn of the twentieth century, St. Louis was also home to several famous writers, poets, and playwrights, including Sara Teasdale, Marianne Moore, T. S. Eliot, Eugene Field, Kate Chopin, William Burroughs, and Tennessee Williams ("St. Louis, Missouri").

St. Louis in Twain's Novels

Now we will identify and discuss some of the St. Louis-related passages in Twain's three novels-Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson-and his nonfiction book Life on the Mississippi.

[1] The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a novel about a young boy growing up in St. Petersburg, a small Mississippi River town in the 1830s. The title character and his best friend, Huck Finn, witness a murder committed by Injun Joe. An innocent man is imprisoned for the murder, and Tom musters courage to reveal the identity of the killer. The town hails Tom as a brave boy, but he fears that Injun Joe, who has fled, would kill him.

St. Louis is mentioned once in Tom Sawyer, in Chapter 24. After Injun Joe disappears, a detective comes from St. Louis to locate and arrest the criminal. Below is part of the narration:

Rewards had been offered, the country had been scoured, but no Injun Joe was found. One of those omniscient and awe-inspiring marvels, a detective, came up from St. Louis, moused around, shook his head, looked wise, and made that sort of astounding success which members of that craft usually achieve. That is to say, he "found a clew." But you can't hang a "clew" for murder, and so after that detective had got through and gone home, Tom felt just as insecure as he was before. (Twain, Tom Sawyer 218-19)

[2] Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A sequel to Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel told in the first person by the title character. In this work, Huck flees his abusive father and, with Jim, a runaway slave, travels down the Mississippi River on a raft. Huck describes the places they visit, including St. Louis, and various kinds of people they encounter along the voyage. Huckleberry Finn is also a novel of education-a bildungsroman-as the main character learns about the cruelty, deceptiveness, and folly of human beings.

St. Louis appears in three chapters-12, 24, and 39-of the novel. In Chapter 24, St. Louis is simply mentioned-alongside Cincinnati-as "a big place" (Twain, Huckleberry Finn 186). Meanwhile, in Chapter 12, Huck describes the prosperous, beautiful city as he observes it.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep. (Twain, Huckleberry Finn 81-82)

Later, in Chapter 39, Silas-Tom Sawyer's uncle-decides to advertize Jim in St. Louis and New Orleans newspapers so that the runaway slave can be returned to his owner. The move has a chilling effect on Huck:

The old man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters. (Twain, Huckleberry Finn 300)

[3] Pudd'nhead Wilson

Pudd'nhead Wilson is a mystery novel about the eccentric lawyer David Wilson, whose nickname is "Pudd'nhead." The title character reveals the mistaken identities of two children-Tom and Valet. Roxy, a light-skinned slave, switches her newborn baby, Tom, with Valet, a white newborn boy so that her natural son can avoid enslavement. Tom grows up as a white boy, while Valet, despite his white skin, grows up as a black boy. In solving a murder case, Wilson exposes Roxy's deception, and Tom becomes a slave. Valet regains freedom, but his deprived upbringing makes him unfit for dignified living.

St. Louis appears several times in Pudd'nhead Wilson. The setting of the story is "the town of Dawson's Landing, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat, below St. Louis" (Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson 1).
In Chapter 5, Tom, Roxy's true son, is now a teenager. He attends Yale University for two years before he drops out and returns to Dawson's Landing. Finding his native town dull, he seeks pleasure in St. Louis:

[Tom] began to make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found companionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more freedom, in some particulars, than he could have at home. So, during the next two years, his visits to the city grew in frequency and his tarryings there grew steadily longer in duration.
He was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances, privately, which might get him into trouble some day-in fact, did. (Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson 27).

In Chapter 10, Tom is now addicted to gambling in St. Louis: "Occasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last temptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as possible" (Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson 56).
Meanwhile, in Chapter 5, the widow Cooper, who needs a lodger for extra income, puts out an advertisement. One day, to her delight, she receives a letter from two Italian twins in St. Louis:

The widow had a large spare room, which she let to a lodger, with board, when she could find one, but this room had been empty for a year now, to her sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and she needed the lodging money for trifling luxuries. But now, at last, on a flaming June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended; her year-worn advertisement had been answered; and not by a village applicant, no, no!-this letter was from away off yonder in the dim great world to the North; it was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch gazing out with unseeing eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty Mississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune. Indeed it was specially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one. (Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson 29).

St. Louis in Life on the Mississippi

Life on the Mississippi is an autobiographical account of the author's pre-Civil War days as a Mississippi steamboat pilot; it also describes the changed sceneries along the river as observed by the author upon his return to the Mississippi many years later. One of the most interesting sections of the work concerns his recollections of his youthful days as a little-town boy and apprentice pilot. At the beginning of Chapter 4, he recalls how steamboat pilots were the envy of the boys in Hannibal. Then, he mentions St. Louis as a place of wonder: "Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this" (Twain, Life 20).

Chapter 22, entitled "I Return to My Muttons," begins with Twain's account of his return to St. Louis after twenty years' absence. Touring the city, he notices some changes but also finds the city looks familiar. The impressions are overwhelmingly positive. Several paragraphs in the chapter present the city as a place of affluence and elegance. Because of the importance of the passage in understanding the cityscape of St. Louis in the late nineteenth century, we will present below six paragraphs from the text:

The city seemed but little changed. It WAS greatly changed, but it did not seem so; because in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you can't persuade a new thing to look new.... The place had just about doubled its size, since I was a resident of it, and was now become a city of 400,000 inhabitants; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as it had looked formerly....
However, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough; notably in dwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are noble and beautiful and modern. They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around them; whereas the dwellings of a former day are packed together in blocks, and are all of one pattern, with windows all alike, set in an arched frame-work of twisted stone; a sort of house which was handsome enough when it was rarer.
There was another change-the Forest Park. This was new to me. It is beautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit of having been made mainly by nature. There are other parks, and fine ones, notably Tower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for St. Louis interested herself in such improvements at an earlier day than did the most of our cities.
The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do it. It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepled metropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away on every hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and remember that I had allowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have allowed it to go by seems, of course, foolish and inexplicable to-day, at a first glance; yet there were reasons at the time to justify this course.
A Scotchman, Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, writing some forty-five or fifty years ago, said-"The streets are narrow, ill paved and ill lighted." Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of them are ill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be repeated, now. The "Catholic New Church" was the only notable building then.... St. Louis is well equipped with stately and noble public buildings now, and the little church, which the people used to be so proud of, lost its importance a long time ago. Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray, if he could come back; for he prophesied the coming greatness of St. Louis with strong confidence. (Twain, Life 107-08)

Conclusion

In Twain's three novels and memoir, St. Louis appears as a prospering riverfront city in the mid- and late nineteenth century. Economically, the city represented prosperity; industrially, it represented job opportunities; and culturally, it represented refinement. The novel Pudd'nhead Wilson reveals that as a big city, St. Louis attracted gamblers and alcoholics, but that was not the problem unique to St. Louis. In Life on the Mississippi, the author observes that, while "St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city," the St. Louis riverfront looks neglected; in place of "the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen," he now sees "a few scattering handfuls of ragged Negroes, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, others asleep" (109). He realizes that the days of "Mississippi steamboating" are virtually dead. Overall, however, there is little negativity in Twain's representation of the city in his fiction and nonfiction. As we read Twain's texts as historical documents, we learn much about the glorious past of St. Louis as a city of "progress, energy, [and] prosperity" (Twain, Life 107-08).

Note

[1] This essay was delivered at the Mark Twain Seminar of the Historical Society of St. Louis County, MO, held at Missouri Baptist University, 22 April 2009.

Works Cited

"About St. Louis: History." 20 April 2009 <http://stlouis.missouri.org/about/history.html>.
"St. Louis, Missouri." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 19 April 2009. 20 April 2009
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis,_Missouri>.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1884. Edited with an introduction and
annotation by Leo Marx. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.
_______. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 1876. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1999.
_______. Life on the Mississippi. 1883. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000.
_______. Pudd'nhead Wilson. 1894. New York: Bantam 1972.

My Journey through the World
By Douglas T. Morris

My article in the 2008 issue of Cantos indicated that my wife and I desired to travel to cultural, historical sites in the United States and throughout the world. That issue concentrated on travels in the United States. This article concentrates on world travels.

During the spring of 1989, my wife (Yvonne), our daughter (Heather), and I enjoyed our first trip across the ocean. My daughter's high school band director scheduled a band trip to a music festival in London, England. Parents could also take the trip at the identical cost for students without having chaperone duties. Taking advantage of the bargain proved hard to avoid. The trip included round-trip air fare, lodging, and most meals at a cost of $885.00 per person, a price which appealed to us. Upon landing at Heathrow Airport, we marveled at the heavily armed military security, an occurrence which we never experienced in the United States. We toured sites such as the British Museum, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Marble Arch, observed the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and traveled to Stratford-Upon-Avon.

My wife and I celebrated twenty-five years of marriage in 1994. Having never traveled on a cruise ship, she convinced me that we should broaden our method of travel. We chose an itinerary which included stops at St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Nassau, Bahamas. Taking advice from the travel agent, we chose a seven-night cruise because he said the ship was so large that learning the geography of the ship usually requires three to four days. His advice proved to be correct as we spent three days and nights learning where to find venues and enjoyed the last three days partaking of the entertainment offered. Interestingly, one found difficulty in moving from one end of the ship to the other without passing through the casino. I think that was designed to appeal to the gambling addicts. A shore excursion to a rain forest in Puerto Rico provided in sight and fascination, but the return trip to the ship on a bus with inoperative windows, a non-functioning air conditioner, and an exterior temperature of 100+ degrees became difficult. Ulysses had the Cyclops; we had defective windows. The stops at St. Thomas and at Nassau offered beautiful scenery, without surprises.

During the spring of 1996, my wife and I, giving in to what became an addiction, booked another cruise trip vacation. The itinerary included Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Mexico. This trip offered more pleasure than the first cruise because the ship geography matched that of our first cruise ship; therefore, we knew the layout of the ship the moment we boarded. In Haiti, we enjoyed a day on a beach and a trip to the beach flea market where my wife experienced an extremely assertive sales lady; Ulysses had the Cyclops; my wife had the sales lady. In Jamaica, we visited a banana plantation and then climbed the waterfalls at Dunn's River where my wife encountered another assertive sales person. Being a knight of the round table, I rescued her. The following day, upon arrival at Grand Cayman, we sailed on a catamaran to an area in the bay known as Sting Ray City where some of the tourists entered the water to feed, and swim with, the stingray. Fortunately, the stingray stung no one. Steve Irwin (the crocodile hunter) suffered the opposite years later, at the Great Barrier Reef, dying as result of the sting. The visit to Mexico provided an opportunity to see the Mayan ruins at Tulum.
During the spring of 1997, the addiction continued. We booked our third cruise trip. This one included stops at Puerto Rico, Martinique, Barbados, Antigua, and St. Martin. As result of a transportation boycott, in Martinique, we walked to the town marketplace and then back to the ship. The scenery at Barbados and the beach at Antigua were marvelous. In St. Martin/St. Marteen, we toured both the Dutch and the French portions of the island.
During the summer of 1998, we crossed the ocean again. My wife, our daughter, and I booked a cruise trip on the Mediterranean Sea with port calls at Barcelona, Spain; at Villefranche, France, and at Ajaccio, Corsica (France); at Monte Carlo, Monaco; at Civitavecchia and Rome, Italy; at Messina, Sicily (Italy), and at Valletta, Malta. The tour at Barcelona offered an opportunity to visit the site of the 1992 Olympics, to see the statute of Christopher Columbus, and to wonder at the view of the LaSagrada Familia Church designed by Gaudi with construction beginning in 1882. Projections indicate that the construction shall be complete in the year 2026. The port call at Monaco led us to the royal castle of the Gramaldi's where we watched the changing of the guard and to Saint Nicholas Cathedral, the burial site of Princess Grace and, years later, Prince Rainier III. In 2006, during our third trip to Monaco, we were fortunate to be at the royal palace when a tour of one wing of the castle was available. Each of our three trips included a visit to the Grand Casino at Monte Carlo which is much different from the casino gambling houses located in the United States of America: the Grand Casino is ornate and opulent without being gaudy. During the stop at Corsica in 1998, we saw the house where Napoleon was born and the church where he was baptized. In Rome, we visited the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, the Arch of Constantine, the Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museum, especially enjoying the tour through the Sistine Chapel which took on more significance when a new pope was elected a few years later. In Sicily, we viewed Mount Etna and then ported in Malta. No Cyclops, nor German Shepherd dog, was sighted during this trip.

LaSagrada Familia Church Grand Casino at Monte Cristo

During the summer of 2001, we crossed the ocean a third time. We boarded the ship at a port in Italy and sailed to Katakalon, Greece, where we boarded a bus to Olympia, the site of the original Olympic Games. From Katakalon, the ship sailed to the beautiful island of Santorini where we carefully walked to the top of, thankfully, an inactive volcano. After our descent, we swam in the cool water of the Aegean Sea, followed by a funicular ride to the market shops atop the cliffs of Santorini. The following day, the ship docked at Kusadasi, Turkey, where we visited the Shrine of Virgin Mary, traveled to the ancient city of Ephesus and were awed at the acoustic qualities of the Grand Theater where the apostle Paul once preached before having to leave town to avoid arrest by government officials. The tour guide mentioned that Elton John presented a concert at the Grand Theater the night before we were there. The following day, the ship docked at Piraeus, Greece, where we took a bus to Athens, climbed to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon, descended, and went to the Olympic Stadium where the 2004 Olympic events were to occur. Then, later during the day, we made a trip to the Temple of Poesidon. That night, during the return trip to Rome, as the ship passed between the toe of the boot and Sicily, a volcano erupted. The sea was extremely rough. Ulysses and the German Shepherd probably caused the rough sea.

Olympia Shrine of Virgin Mary

Grand Theater

The following year, 2002, we traveled to Europe again as part of a group organized by a tour agency. The flight from St. Louis via Chicago and London ended at the airport in Nice, France. The trip included a tour of Arles where we saw the residence of Van Gogh and toured Cannes, the site of the international film festival. It also included a tour to Avignon to see the site where a Pope, during the period when there were two Popes simultaneously, resided. From Nice, the group boarded a TGV train at 6:00 A.M. for a speedy trip to Paris. Upon arrival at Gare de Lyon station, a French guide greeted our group, immediately warned us of "pickpockets," and took us on a tour of Paris. The tour included walking through Notre Dame Cathedral, taking the lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower and Place de la Concord, where King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined during the French Revolution. Rumor states that cattle avoided the area because of the pungent odor of death at that location during the revolution. From Place de la Concorde we rode along the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe at Place Charles de Gaulle and then to Palais de Chaillot (Trocadero Museum) which offers a most spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower across the Seine. We also visited the Louvre where we saw, among other works of art, da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa. During the late afternoon, we traveled to the Palace of Versailles, toured the palace, especially enjoying the Hall of Mirrors and walking through the magnificent gardens which border the palace. Upon returning to Paris, my wife and I took a dinner boat cruise on the Seine, enjoying the beautiful "City of Light" during the evening. The following day, the group boarded a bus for a day-trip to Normandy, the site of the World War II D-day invasion by Allied Nations troops, and site of the American Cemetery where American soldiers are buried. The tour guide advised the group that Americans, when standing in the cemetery, need no passport because they are standing on sovereign United States of America land. However, once an American steps beyond the cemetery, a passport is necessary.

Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe Eiffel Tower

Hall of Mirrors American Cemetery at Normandy

The addiction returned during the summer of 2004. My wife, our daughter, and I booked a cruise trip on the Baltic Sea to ports at Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, and Germany. The flight from St. Louis, via Chicago, took us to Copenhagen, Denmark, where we immediately boarded the ship bound for Stockholm, to Helsinki the following day, and then to St. Petersburg, Russia, for two days and one night in port.

During the first day in St. Petersburg, we visited the Hermitage Museum and shopped at the markets along Nevsky Prospect. A trip to Catherine Palace and to Peterhof Palace highlighted the second day in port. The view from Peterhof Palace along the canal toward the Gulf of Finland, in the words of the music group Berlin, took my breath away as it rivals the beauty of the gardens at Versailles. Neither Cyclops nor a German Shepherd dog was sighted. Tallinn, Estonia was beautiful. Gdansk, Poland, was unique considering that it still strives to rebuild from the destruction of World War II. Our next tour occurred in Germany, where we rode a train three-and-one-half hours to Berlin. At arrival at a station in what had been East Berlin, I used the opportunity to test my German language skills in conversation with the German tour guide. We saw remains of the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, and Checkpoint Charlie, the Allied Museum, the Holocaust Museum and other sites of interest. The following day the ship docked at Copenhagen, Denmark, where we rode a boat through the canals and saw the house where Anne Frank hid from German soldiers. We also saw the Little Mermaid statute, visited Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park, and returned to the ship at midnight to finish packing our luggage in preparation to disembark the ship at 4:30 A.M. in order to connect with our early-morning flight to the United States of America.

Catherine Palace Peterhof Palace

Gulf of Finland Berlin Wall

Tivoli Gardens

At this point in our lives, we were totally addicted to cruise ship vacations. During the summer of 2005, we ventured on our tenth cruise vacation. The trip included stops in England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, and France. The Cyclops returned during our attempt to journey from St. Louis to Chicago when a storm delayed our flight, causing us to miss the connection in Chicago, where we were assigned "standby" for the next flight to London. "Lady Luck" finally shone on us when we received business class tickets/seats for the flight to London. We had never experienced luxury seats on an airplane. The good fortune only lasted overnight because our luggage did not arrive with us in London the next morning and the delay caused us to reach the port to embark the ship only fifteen minutes prior to sailing time. We hand-washed our underwear in order to have fresh underclothing for the next day, a task which we repeated the next night because our luggage arrived on ship at port in Dublin, Ireland, on the third day of our trip. Having bought a few clothes on ship, we still rejoiced at the prospect of having fresh clothes and toiletries for the remainder of the twelve-day trip. The city of Dublin and the Irish countryside was beautiful. Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bergen, Norway, were spectacular as was Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Ghent and Bruges, Belgium. In Bruges, I remembered what my wife always said-we should always conduct ourselves properly-because in conversation with fellow ship passengers I discovered that they and my workplace supervisor attended the same college and were acquainted. A trip into Paris resulted in an opportunity to enjoy lunch at a restaurant on the Eiffel Tower.

The addiction continued during the summer of 2006 when my wife and I enjoyed another cruise that included stops at Italy, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England. During the flight to Europe, via Newark International Airport, the plane had to divert to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get additional fuel. While the airplane was on the ground, the only toilet on board malfunctioned, leading us to believe that the Cyclops was on board. At Florence, Italy, we saw Michelangelo's replica of David; at Pisa, the Leaning Tower; at Monaco, the royal palace and a tour of one wing of the palace, and the Grand Casino. By the way, our lost luggage finally arrived when we re-boarded the ship at Cannes (the Cyclops and the German Shepherd again). At Barcelona, Spain, we saw the LaSagrada Familia Church again and saw Picasso's home at Malaga, Spain. We enjoyed Gibraltar and the view of the coast of Africa as the ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar while I fumed because the cruise line belatedly cancelled a port stop at Casablanca, Morocco. Lisbon, The Hague, the Netherlands, and Brussels were enjoyable. However, the stop at LeHavre, France, proved to be especially enjoyable. From LeHavre, we went to Monet's home at Giverny and awed at the wonder of his home and gardens, especially the water lilies, and then toured Rouen where we saw the memorial to Joan of Arc. At the last stop of the cruise, our fourth time in England, we finally got to see the mystique of Stonehenge. Our stop in London lasted three days during which we scheduled a trip, by train, from London to Paris and back to London via the channel tunnel. On our last day in London, during a boat tour on the Thames, my wife and I came in contact with an acquaintance from home. What are the odds of that happening in a city of millions, five thousand miles from home?

Leaning Tower of Pisa Monet's Garden

Lily Pond - Monet's Garden Monet's Home

Stonehenge

During the summer of 2007, my wife, our daughter, and I tendered from the cruise ship to the beach at Labedee, Haiti, where my wife and I rode tandem on a wave runner and tried to maintain pace with our daughter who was riding single. The following day Heather and I climbed Dunn's River Falls at Ocho Rios, Jamaica, while Yvonne visited the market shops at the top of the falls. During the climb of the waterfalls, I got into a fight with a rock resulting in a bruised knee, the rock being tougher than I. However, because the water was cold, the water acted as an anti-swelling agent, preventing serious injury. During lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Restaurant, Yvonne swallowed a fish bone but knew that lemon juice, which she got from the server, would dissolve the bone. Blame the injury and the fish bone on the Cyclops. Stops at Grand Cayman, Playa de Carmen, Mexico, San Juan Puerto, Rico and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgins Islands occurred without incident. No Cyclops, no dog.

Riding the Wave Runners

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

font-size: small;"> During the summer of 2008, my wife, my daughter, and I embarked on another cruise ship vacation. Our itinerary included San Juan, Puerto Rico, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, Saint Martin, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Aruba, and Curacao. We arrived at San Juan the evening prior to boarding ship, only to discover that our hotel reservations had been cancelled (the Cyclops again?). After lengthy discussion, the hotel manager found a very nice room for us. We certainly enjoyed the ports and were surprised at the beach at Saint Martin when we discovered that we were adjacent to a "clothing optional" beach. At Saint Thomas, we enjoyed the beach at Magens Bay which is rated as one of the nicest in the world.

On December 19, 2008, my wife, daughter, and I flew to Los Angeles, California, spent the night at a hotel and boarded the Sapphire Princess Ship on December 20 for a seven-day cruise of the Mexican Rivera. The trip included stops at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. We enjoyed Christmas day at Cabo San Lucas where I attempted to maintain pace with my daughter on a wave runner on the Pacific Ocean. No Cyclops, no German Shepherd. On Christmas day, a white-bearded, rotund man wearing a red cap, a red suit, and black boots boarded the ship, met with children, presented a gift to each, and then departed for the return trip to the North Pole. All had a nice time. Obviously, the cruise line understands the concept of excellent public relations.
We have booked a cruise for the summer of 2009 that shall take us to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and to Alexandria, Egypt, which shall afford us the opportunity to see the pyramids and the sphinx and set foot on another continent.
As a child/teenager growing up in Cadiz, Kentucky, during the 1950s and 1960s, I dreamed about visiting historical, cultural sites far removed from my hometown. New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Yellowstone National Park, and Mount Rushmore topped the list. I also envisioned the opportunity to see London, Paris, Rome, Athens, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and other sites. However, at age seventeen, my travels extended only three hundred miles in any direction from my hometown. Obviously, my travels have expanded significantly. In addition to our travels, my wife, thanks to a government fellowship, traveled to the Republic of Korea in 1990 and again in 2004.

Note: The comments about the Cyclops and the German Shepherd, relative to bad luck, are also mentioned in the spring 2008 issue of Cantos.

Serving a Higher Purpose
By Jeffrey Dales

Years ago, I was taught a very valuable lesson about my work ethics. A couple of friends and I were to eat at Fortel's Pizza in Kirkwood. As we were talking about our various jobs, I made a statement that I will never forget. I said, "If that is all they are going to pay me, why should I work for them?" Sometimes in our lives we have defining moments. When we look back, we realize that there was a true turning point. Usually we don't recognize it at the time, and in this case, I certainly did not! I was too busy feeling uncomfortable about the response I received.
Tom, who is a successful businessman and mentor to all of us who were there, replied, "Who do you work for?" As a Christian, I knew exactly what direction he was going in.
Embarrassed, I replied, "Apparently, not for God." My whole world changed that day, although at that specific moment I was not conscious of it.
Prior to this experience, I felt hopeless and did not believe that my future had much in store. Later in my life, I began to realize my life was imprinted as a result of the conversation. I now have a purpose for everything I do. I came to the realization that there are unlimited possibilities for me, as well as unlimited possibilities for you! Though I was doing my best to live my life for Christ, I was shocked to realize how much baggage I was still holding on to. My life was divided into the areas I wanted God to control and the areas I wanted to control. Through daily prayer, Christ began to show me my work ethic needed some drastic improvement. I began to take steps to change my ideas to coincide with God's thoughts. As a result, I began going to work for Him.
When I look back at all He has done for me in my life, the very least I can do is give Him my best in all I do. Whatever cross-point you are in your life, whether a student in a part-time job or out in the career world, all that you are doing, do it for Him! Our current situation in the United States is not the best environment in which to remain positive. The economy is plummeting, people are living in panic, jobs are scarce, and the fear of losing jobs is predominant. But, despite all the negative things in our lives or in the world around us, there is Hope.
Our society today has accepted average as the norm. We settle for average services at local businesses, such as restaurants and high-name retailers. Have you ever been shopping and had to wait for an employee to put away their cell phone before you could receive any help? I have. Today, too many people are doing only what is required; no more, no less. They have fallen in love with "that's good enough for me." The disciplines and work habits we have today will follow us into tomorrow. We should not get a better job and then begin to work harder. We need to begin to work for Him and our job will get better. No matter what your daily routine consists of, do it for God. He will bring out the very best in you and bless you with opportunities you have never dreamed of. And without hesitation, average will no longer be an option in your life.
As I stated previously, I have learned much through my conversation with Tom. For ten years, I have served a Higher Purpose in everything I do. If you choose to do the same, you will stand out among your peers, promotions will come your way, and opportunities will become more prevalent. When others notice your change, they will not be able to understand the difference. When they ask you, you will be able to explain to them, not only that you are serving a Higher Purpose but the "Good News," hope and salvation that you have received in serving Him.

My Best Friend, My Granny
By Danielle Hamilton

Mary is a woman unlike any other. She excels in everything she does and is known for her hospitality. There is rarely a day she does not have visitors at her home, but she never complains; she thrives on it.
Mary Tart grew up in the house of an alcoholic. She and her eight brothers and sisters experienced poverty, abuse, and distrust on a very deep level. Her siblings all turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, but through the grace of God she got out of the situation without any of that. All of her life she was the rock that held her family together. She tried to help her siblings in any way she could, but no matter what she did, they would not change their lifestyles. This broke her heart, but she realized all she could do was pray for them.
In high school, not only was she a cheerleader, but she was also voted Homecoming Queen her senior year. She loved socializing and being friends with everyone. Mary would line up three to four dates a night and go with whoever picked her up first. While dating Jackie Moody, Mary met his brother Jim, sparks flew immediately, and she and Jim began to date.
Married at 17, she and Jim left the cotton fields of her hometown in Blytheville, Arkansas, to go to Missouri. There, they had three daughters, Joy, Dana, and Kim. Each of them grew up, got married, and had two children of her own. They were always very involved with their Baptist Church and raised their family to follow the Lord. Jim opened a small business called Pre- Cast Products where he made concrete molds, concrete stairs, and air conditioner pads. Mary managed the office up front and dealt with the customers. They worked there until Jim was fifty-five years old, when he sold the company and retired.
Their daughter Joy and her husband Kevin stayed in St. Louis, but Kim and Dana, with their families, went South-Kim to Tennessee and Dana to Florida. Although they lived far away, they still talk on the phone daily and visit throughout the year. Family is the most important thing to Mary; she values family only second to her relationship with the Lord. She would do anything she could for them and their families. She was the best mother she could have been; as a result, she raised three girls, who in turn raised great children of their own.
Mary's mother lived in a nursing home the last few years of her life. Mary would visit her every day to feed her lunch and dinner and to make sure she was getting the proper care. For those couple of years, Mary devoted her life to her mother, always being by her side. She came to know the other residents of the nursing home, as well as the workers; they all loved her and their faces lit up when she walked in. When her mother passed away, it was very sad; however, it lifted a huge burden off Mary's shoulders and allowed her to have her own life again.
On June 1, 1988, Mary became a grandmother. The baby girl's name was Danielle, and she was Granny's pride and joy. Many people say that it's the grandparents' job to spoil their grandchildren, but Danielle's Granny took it to a whole new level. She was a young grandmother, at forty-two she still looked thirty, and everyone thought she was Danielle's mother. She would dress the baby, curl her hair, and take her shopping, and as Danielle got older, she continued to do this. Danielle learned to talk, and while they were shopping, when she saw something she wanted she would pout and ask her Granny for it; when Granny said she did not have any money, Danielle would simply say, "But you have checks!" not understanding how the money market worked. It always made Granny laugh, and she did not even bother to explain it to her.
Danielle would spend the night at Granny's at least once a week, and whenever her parents came to get her, she would scream, "I not go home! I not go home!" because she loved being there more than anywhere else. They soon became best friends. As Danielle grew, so did their relationship. When Danielle was too sick to go to school, her mom would take her to her Granny's, and if Danielle needed cookies for her class, Granny would make them. There was nothing Granny would not do for her.
As Danielle reached high school they stayed close. She would always have her friends over to Granny's because, more than anywhere else, Granny's was what she considered home. Granny's doors were always open for her and her friends. Everyone knew "Granny's house." She loved having the kids over and they became her grandkids too. She would always be the one to host parties for the high school students and supply dinner and showers to the entire Christian high school basketball teams. She was their biggest fan, and they were comfortable going over there to eat, even when Danielle was not there. She has a way of making everyone feel welcome.
She also has her pastor for dinner regularly and babysits her neighbor's children. Everyone loves and trusts her completely. Her servant's heart and hostess abilities cannot be topped. She can whip up a meal for ten in a matter of minutes and can clean a house in less than that.
Mary also overflows with compassion. If anyone is ever in need, she is there to listen and do whatever she can do to help. She is a sap for any child who knocks at the door selling things, and she also has a giving spirit towards the needy. When her grandchildren could not pay a bill in time she was the one who paid it. When they could not afford groceries, she bought them groceries. Whatever the need may be, she fills it.
Danielle lived with Granny and Papa most of her high school career due to conflict with her parents. When no one else would love her, Granny loved her unconditionally. Granny constantly told her that she was proud of her and constantly supported her through her schooling and extracurricular activities. For a grandparent to take on the role of parent can be hard, but Granny and Papa were willing to do whatever they could to bless their granddaughter.
To this day Granny and Danielle are closer than ever, even though Danielle is away at school. She still makes it a point to visit Granny once a week. Granny has done so much for her and everyone else. She never wants to be paid back, or helped with anything; she just wants to be repaid with quality time.
Her marriage is still blossoming. Now that they are retired, she and Jim spend the majority of the day together. They walk, go to the mall, and take care of each other. Papa gives Granny pedicures and manicures, and Granny still cooks all their meals. They know they are blessed and treasure every day they have together.
They also love to travel. They have gone to the majority of the States, including Hawaii, and they usually travel about once every two months. For Christmas one year, they took all their children and grandchildren to Florida. They paid for the hotel and for food, as well as a trip to Disney World and the Epcot Center. It was the best Christmas ever!
Mary continues to bless people, even as finances are not what they once were, and they continue to share everything they have. She will never stop cooking, cleaning, and serving in whatever way she could. No one will ever be able to repay her for all that she has done. She is the model of love and hospitality to everyone.

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Cantos 2007