From the Civil War to the turn of the century, this is the true-life story of the original Coast Guard and one crew of African-American heroes who fought storms and saved lives off America's southeastern coast. 31 halftones.

Fire Island is a string of communities and parks, gay and straight bars, boats and bridges, beach umbrellas and bungalows--all bound together by the pristine white sand of the island's beach. This 32-mile-long barrier island off the coast of Long Island has been defined by legendary shipwrecks and heroic lifesaving in the 19th century, but also kindled by menacing storms and a web of sociological intrigue as an upwardly mobile American middle class sought out vacation homes and coastal recreation during the 20th century. From cholera protests at the Surf Hotel in 1892 to a grassroots campaign to prevent a highway that ultimately established Fire Island National Seashore in 1964, Fire Island's history is a grand melodrama that has caught world attention.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

On a family vacation to the beach, Scott stumbles upon a crime being committed and helps find the people involved.

The real life experiences of a burn survivor [Spencer Beach].

This New York Times bestselling book is filled with hundreds of fun, deceptively simple, budget-friendly ideas for sprucing up your home. With two home renovations under their (tool) belts and millions of hits per month on their blog YoungHouseLove.com, Sherry and John Petersik are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Packed with 243 tips and ideas—both classic and unexpected—and more than 400 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.

From the Civil War to the turn of the century, this is the true-life story of the original coast guard, and one crew of African American heroes who fought storms and saved lives off North Carolina's outer banks. Fire on the Beach recovers a lost gem of American history. It tells the story of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, formed in 1871 to assure the safe passage of American and international shipping and to save lives and salvage cargo. A century ago, the adventures of the now forgotten "surfmen" who, in crews of seven, bore the brunt of this dangerous but vital duty filled the pages of popular reading material, from Harper's to the Baltimore Sun and New York Herald. Station 17, located on the desolate beaches of Pea Island, North Carolina, housed one such unit, and Richard Etheridge—the only black man to lead a lifesaving crew—was its captain. A former slave and Civil War veteran, Etheridge recruited and trained a crew of African Americans, forming the only all-black station in the nation. Although civilian attitudes toward Etheridge and his men ranged from curiosity to outrage, they figured among the most courageous surfmen in the service, performing many daring rescues. From 1880 to the closing of the station in 1947, the Pea Island crew saved scores of men, women, and children who, under other circumstances, would have considered the hands of those reaching out to help them to be of the wrong race. In 1896, when the three-masted schooner E. S. Newman beached during a hurricane, Etheridge and his men accomplished one of the most daring rescues in the annals of the Life-Saving Service. The violent conditions had rendered their equipment useless. Undaunted, the surfmen swam out to the wreck, making nine trips in all, and saved the entire crew. This incredible feat went unrecognized until 1996, when the Coast Guard posthumously awarded the crew the Gold Life-Saving Medal. The authors depict the lives of Etheridge and his crew against the backdrop of late-nineteenth-century America—the horrors of the Civil War, the hopefulness of Reconstruction, and the long slide toward Plessy v. Ferguson that followed. Full of exploits and heroics, Fire on the Beach, like the movie Glory, illustrates yet another example of the little-known but outstanding contributions of a remarkable group of African Americans to our country's history.