Seven miles off the coast of French Guiana lies Bagne de Cayenne. Loosely translated to mean hot prison, Bagne de Cayenne is also known as Devil’s Island. This malaria-ridden, tiny green speck in the vast blue ocean is dotted with palm trees, infested with sandfleas and overrun with giant rats. During the time the prison was in operation, due to the extremely harsh treatment administered by the prison’s more psychopathic guards, fifty percent of the new arrivals on Devil’s Island died within the first 12 months.
Read moreFruit of the Lemon Tree
Anthony Pusateri was a peace-loving man. The short, stocky devout Roman Catholic lived with his family on 10 acres just outside of Palermo, Sicily. One beautiful Spring morning, Anthony’s wife, Rose, cleared the breakfast table, poured her husband a second cup of coffee, then asked, “Tell me, An-tony, what on earth will I fix for dinner?” Anthony just grunted. She gently patted the thinning hair on his head. “Dear St. Theresa,” she begged. “This is my provider? God bless the soul of a man who won’t shoot a deer or even a rabbit.”
Read moreThe Missouri Waltz
In 1931, The Champ, a movie starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper, captured the heart of America. The Champ told the tale of a down-on-his-luck boxer, but it wasn’t the uplifting story with a sad ending that gave Uncle Red the urge to high-tail-it off the family farm in Tightwad, Missouri. The reason? Because all 50 souls who called that tiny speck of hardscrabble land home, agreed on one thing. With Red’s rugged good looks, generous mouth and receding hairline, the big man from the Show Me State was a dead ringer for the famous movie star Wallace Beery. Uncle Red figured that once he’d made it all the way to tinsel-town, he’d get a starring role in a ‘moving picture’, playing Poncho Villa or Long John Silver. At the very least he could stand-in for the gruff-talking Beery.
Read moreVerge of a Nervous Breakdown
Swing music of the 1940’s was officially declared dead by none other than Martin Block, the man who newspaper reporter, Walter Winchell, described as America’s first disc jockey. Block’s radio program Make Believe Ballroom premiered in 1935 and was broadcast live from a New York hotel. By 1956, Make Believe Ballroom had gone the way of Fibber McGee and Molly. Block suggested his brand of music had seen its day, and that the sons and daughters of WWII’s ‘jumpin’ jivin’ ‘bobby soxers’, had crowned a new god and its name was Rock and Roll.
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