Books with author Wharton James

The Wrong Page, My Astonishing Life as a Teenager in 1958, is an intimate, humorous self-portrait of a fourteen year old boy suddenly thrust into the adult world and seat of government of the most powerful country on Earth. It is Washington, DC in 1958. The Cold War is going strong and the country is coming apart as the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam War protests take center stage. Unsupervised and unaccountable in Washington, DC, he must adjust to living away from home, being alone, confronting bullies, an unfriendly high school, and working in the United States Capitol with congressmen and senators.The Wrong Page is a fun ride through the halls of Congress and the United States Capitol Building with its secret staircases, hidden chambers and a parade of characters who can only be found in the nation’s capital.In four brief postscripts with equal humor, the author describes his college years, military experiences, years as a small town car dealer, and life as a road man working for an automobile company. The author’s life had indeed been astonishing and then he became a writer and things got really weird. The Wrong Page is a personal narrative infused with humor and the sense of fear and confusion a young boy must confront when he is set adrift in a world within the beltway when there was no beltway. Yes, it really was that way once upon a time.

The Wrong Page, My Astonishing Life as a Teenager in 1958, is an intimate, humorous self-portrait of a fourteen year old boy suddenly thrust into the adult world and seat of government of the most powerful country on Earth. It is Washington, DC in 1958. The Cold War is going strong and the country is coming apart as the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam War protests take center stage. Unsupervised and unaccountable in Washington, DC, he must adjust to living away from home, being alone, confronting bullies, an unfriendly high school, and working in the United States Capitol with congressmen and senators.The Wrong Page is a fun ride through the halls of Congress and the United States Capitol Building with its secret staircases, hidden chambers and a parade of characters who can only be found in the nation’s capital.In four brief postscripts with equal humor, the author describes his college years, military experiences, years as a small town car dealer, and life as a road man working for an automobile company. The author’s life had indeed been astonishing and then he became a writer and things got really weird. The Wrong Page is a personal narrative infused with humor and the sense of fear and confusion a young boy must confront when he is set adrift in a world within the beltway when there was no beltway. Yes, it really was that way once upon a time.

Most of our Indians have a tradition that in the days of old animals and man had a common speech. Each was able to understand the other, and thoughts and language were common to all. It was not until man began to regard himself as superior to the animals and think of them as “lower” that this oneness of speech and relationship was lost. Since then envy, jealousy, anger, on one side, and conceit, pride, and contempt on the other have widened the breach, while Love has stood with tearful eyes looking on at the sad and unnatural estrangement.But in these latter days prophets among the white race have risen up to awaken again within man the desire for brotherhood with the humbler creations of God. Thoreau, John Burroughs, John Muir, Ernest Thompson Seton, W. J. Long, Elizabeth Grinnell, and many others, are showing us our kinship to the birds, buds, bees, blossoms, and beasts. It is with the two thoughts before me of the common speech and understanding existent between the animals and man, and of the kinship that affection shows us does really exist, that I have written the “Story of Scraggles” from her viewpoint, with the confident anticipation that young and old alike will enjoy this truthful record of a sweet and beautiful little life.While, of course, the thoughts put into Scraggles’ words are mine, the statements of fact are literally true. I have told the story as nearly in accord with the incidents as they actually occurred, as this method of telling the story would permit.

In this volume are presented examples of men who shed lustre upon ordinary pursuits, either by the superior manner in which they exercised them or by the noble use they made of the leisure which success in them usually gives. Such men are the nobility of republics. The American people were fortunate in having at an early period an ideal man of this kind in Benjamin Franklin, who, at the age of forty-two, just mid-way in his life, deliberately relinquished the most profitable business of its kind in the colonies for the sole purpose of developing electrical science. In this, as in other respects, his example has had great influence with his countrymen.

Excerpt from Through Ramona's CountryHelen Hunt Jackson, from painting made while studying the conditions of the Indians of Southern California.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

MOST of our Indians have a tradition that in the days of old animals and man had a common speech. Each was able to understand the other, and thoughts and language were common to all. It was not until man began to regard himself as superior to the animals and think of them as “lower” that this oneness of speech and relationship was lost. Since then envy, jealousy, anger, on one side, and conceit, pride, and contempt on the other have widened the breach, while LOVE has stood with tearful eyes looking on at the sad and unnatural estrangement.But in these latter days prophets among the white race have risen up to awaken again within man the desire for brotherhood with the humbler creations of God. Thoreau, John Burroughs, John Muir, Ernest Thompson Seton, W. J. Long, Elizabeth Grinnell, and many others, are showing us our kinship to the birds, buds, bees, blossoms, and beasts. It is with the two thoughts before me of the common speech and understanding existent between the animals and man, and of the kinship that affection shows us does really exist, that I have written the “Story of Scraggles” from her viewpoint, with the confident anticipation that young and old alike will enjoy this truthful record of a sweet and beautiful little life.While, of course, the thoughts put into Scraggles’ words are mine, the statements of fact are literally true. I have told the story as nearly in accord with the incidents as they actually occurred, as this method of telling the story would permit.