This is all about growing up in the south during the 1930s and 1940s and going into the Army in 1953. Childhood adventures, my first real job at the telephone company and hunting stories. This was the south before ¿progress¿ came into our lives.

This all took place back in my high school years where my writing would go into my dresser draw. Later in my college years to be inspired by others who read some of my work. Also being inspired by the great Langston Hughes reading his poetry gave me the inspiration to write more with thoughts about life and endless images. Throughout my vision of writing ideas exploded into words and then formed into a poem or story. Writing was always my way of expressing my feelings and thoughts. Furthermore I experienced similar episodes of my own which gave me fruit for thought in my own travels.

Telling It like It Is It is a deliverance of the mind to think freely. It is breaking the chains that have enslaved the mind, body, and soul for several generations. It is telling like it has never been told before. It will enlighten the human intellect in a world filled with madness and in a society that has lied repeatedly that all men are created equally. There is corruption in our society that intertwines and connects to every individual in America. The root cause of this corruption is fueled by the act of greed to gain power, money, and sex.

'Telling It Like It Is' is a collection of quotations that either give good advice or are useful truths. Of course there will be quotations that you disagree with or don't identify with, but with about 700 pages how could it be otherwise! Taken as a whole though, the book tries to present a coherent view of life that has honesty and integrity and is true. Ultimately, however, you must decide for yourself whether each quote strikes a chord with you and whether all the quotes taken together present a picture of human affairs and behavior that you recognize and agree with. Whatever your final opinion, you will find this collection of quotations both fascinating and provocative.

The autobiography of one of the foremost jazz clarinetists who is well known for his recordings with Edward 'Kid' Ory and the Louis Armstrong All Stars. Darensbourg was born in Baton Rouge, LA, in 1906 and heard many early New Orleans jazz bands as a young boy. For most of his life he lived on the West Coast and the book is a first-rate reference source for students of jazz and popular music in the urban centres of Seattle and Los Angeles.

... encounter the realities of life