West Jupiter Quick Takes Samuel Hay PhD 9780533163380 Books
Download As PDF : West Jupiter Quick Takes Samuel Hay PhD 9780533163380 Books
_feature_div" class="feature" data-feature-name="bookDescription">
West Jupiter Quick Takes Samuel Hay PhD 9780533163380 Books
A few years ago a group of properous farmers offered me a tidy sum to write a history of agriculture in Palm Beach county, FL. Thy feared that "our last crop will be asphalt" and that their story would be lost in a vast parking lot of chain stores and condos.Something similar, I'm sure, motivated retired professor Samuel A. Hay to pen his West Jupiter Quick Takes. Jupiter, which sits atop sprawling Palm Beach County, has a rich 5,000-year history embracing ancient Indians, a famed lighthouse, a World War II base and enough colorful characters to fill the museum that neighbors the 1860 tower. Many of them were African-Americans, whose semi-rural "Reservation" on the edge of town, as some still call it, is now being eroded by parks, four-lane roads and white home seekers attracted by cheaper land and taxes.
Another reason for welcoming West Jupiter is that it fills a big gap - and by an African-American with a PhD/historian's eye for observation who was also raised in that very place. Jupiter probably has more published histories than most mid-sized towns, but so far they've been written by white folks. The problem with giving the black community its just due is that there were so many such "communities" in the early days when farms prevailed and nearly everyone had to be within walking distance of work. So, families of black farm hands or railroad workers lived amidst whites in small clusters. Decades later, when the first histories emerged, there wasn't much left to write about.
After World War II, development and discrimination had more or less coerced the African-American population into the larger, unincorporated cluster that became loosely known as West Jupiter. And with it came all the trappings of an extended family - everything from churches and schools to ball teams, bars and moonshiners - that Sam Hay captures so well.
Hay, once professor of African American Studies at Washington (St. Louis), Purdue and Morgan State universities, sees his boyhood haunts with the double vision of archivist and raconteur. On one hand, through interviews with countless personal friends, archivist Hay fills in the historical chinks with the mortar - who settled where and why - that they hadn't chosen to share with "outsiders."
Then between the layers of historical fact come yarns that only an insider would be privy to. Did you know, for example, that head butting was a popular Saturday night "sport?" Seems that one night a loudmouth called "Georgia" blew into town and challenged a popular Bahamian known as "Butting Dad." The two warmed up, swiveling their heads, on a sandy lot next to Mr. Alford's Hotdog Stand. By six o'clock the place was packed and the fighters began circling each other.
"Georgia landed a glancing blow, which knocked Butting Dad down. Georgia let out such a yell that it bounced off walls. Butting Dad got up very slowly, acting all groggy-like. He started singing "I Like to Huckabuck" as he danced the hucklebuck all around the circle. Then in a flash, he butted Georgia so hard that piss ran down one leg while his brains oozed out of his nose.
"The importance of this tale is that it made boys obey their mama. Whenever a mother told Butting Dad that her son had been "acting mannish," Butting Dad yelled to him, "Come here so I can butt yo nose off."
Along the way, Hay confesses that part of his author's motivation was to keep a promise to his father - always referred to as Hay Jr. - who nagged his son incessantly to "write it all down." And so, the rollicking Mount Carmel Baptist Church becomes center stage because Hay Jr. was its hard-working chief deacon.
Sometimes archivist Hay dominates, with lists of everyone who served as Santas helpers and a litany of successive pastors. But then raconteur Hay grabs the pulpit and regales us with tales like the preacher who got so carried away with his sermon on David and Goliath that he wrapped his Bible in a handkerchief and slung it around his head until it went sailing into the congregation like a cruise missile. Then there were the struggles over drink - wine or not for communion or a pastor's own struggle. Hay tells of one preacher who would also get carried away - literally - that in the midst of a fiery sermon he would dash out the back door, leaving the congregats in puzzled silence.
"It just so happened that he ran to the trunk of his Cadillac and grabbed a quick swig of Old Grand Dad. After turning his sips into swallows, he placed the bottle behind the church so it would be quicker to get to" - until Deacon Hay Jr. turned detective and caught him in the act.
West Jupiter Quick Takes has so many deacon-pastor spats, budget battles and skirmishes over who ranks highest on the deacon totem pole that one finds himself asking, "What am I doing reading all this politicking about someone else's church?" Then the answer comes back quickly: it's interesting and entertaining because it's what goes on at everybody's church.
Just as Hay wrote the landmark work on African American Theater (Cambridge University Press, 1994), West Jupiter could be the gold standard for the history of a small black community in America.
Product details
|
Tags : West Jupiter Quick Takes [Samuel Hay Ph.D] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.,Samuel Hay Ph.D,West Jupiter Quick Takes,Vantage Press,0533163382,General,Social Science,Social Science General,Sociology
People also read other books :
- The search for a wife for Prince Harry A wife for Prince Harry edition by J K Monday Janet Killo Literature Fiction eBooks
- The boy allies in great peril or With the Italian Army in the Alps Clair W 1887 Hayes 9781176221734 Books
- My Lustful Adventures A Nocturnal Meeting edition by Ramrod pseudonym Locus Elm Press Literature Fiction eBooks
- The Message From Patmos David S Clark 9781117772998 Books
- When Heaven Invades Earth Expanded Edition A Practical Guide to a Life of Miracles (Audible Audio Edition) Bill Johnson Ron Howard Destiny Image Publishers Books
West Jupiter Quick Takes Samuel Hay PhD 9780533163380 Books Reviews
A few years ago a group of properous farmers offered me a tidy sum to write a history of agriculture in Palm Beach county, FL. Thy feared that "our last crop will be asphalt" and that their story would be lost in a vast parking lot of chain stores and condos.
Something similar, I'm sure, motivated retired professor Samuel A. Hay to pen his West Jupiter Quick Takes. Jupiter, which sits atop sprawling Palm Beach County, has a rich 5,000-year history embracing ancient Indians, a famed lighthouse, a World War II base and enough colorful characters to fill the museum that neighbors the 1860 tower. Many of them were African-Americans, whose semi-rural "Reservation" on the edge of town, as some still call it, is now being eroded by parks, four-lane roads and white home seekers attracted by cheaper land and taxes.
Another reason for welcoming West Jupiter is that it fills a big gap - and by an African-American with a PhD/historian's eye for observation who was also raised in that very place. Jupiter probably has more published histories than most mid-sized towns, but so far they've been written by white folks. The problem with giving the black community its just due is that there were so many such "communities" in the early days when farms prevailed and nearly everyone had to be within walking distance of work. So, families of black farm hands or railroad workers lived amidst whites in small clusters. Decades later, when the first histories emerged, there wasn't much left to write about.
After World War II, development and discrimination had more or less coerced the African-American population into the larger, unincorporated cluster that became loosely known as West Jupiter. And with it came all the trappings of an extended family - everything from churches and schools to ball teams, bars and moonshiners - that Sam Hay captures so well.
Hay, once professor of African American Studies at Washington (St. Louis), Purdue and Morgan State universities, sees his boyhood haunts with the double vision of archivist and raconteur. On one hand, through interviews with countless personal friends, archivist Hay fills in the historical chinks with the mortar - who settled where and why - that they hadn't chosen to share with "outsiders."
Then between the layers of historical fact come yarns that only an insider would be privy to. Did you know, for example, that head butting was a popular Saturday night "sport?" Seems that one night a loudmouth called "Georgia" blew into town and challenged a popular Bahamian known as "Butting Dad." The two warmed up, swiveling their heads, on a sandy lot next to Mr. Alford's Hotdog Stand. By six o'clock the place was packed and the fighters began circling each other.
"Georgia landed a glancing blow, which knocked Butting Dad down. Georgia let out such a yell that it bounced off walls. Butting Dad got up very slowly, acting all groggy-like. He started singing "I Like to Huckabuck" as he danced the hucklebuck all around the circle. Then in a flash, he butted Georgia so hard that piss ran down one leg while his brains oozed out of his nose.
"The importance of this tale is that it made boys obey their mama. Whenever a mother told Butting Dad that her son had been "acting mannish," Butting Dad yelled to him, "Come here so I can butt yo nose off."
Along the way, Hay confesses that part of his author's motivation was to keep a promise to his father - always referred to as Hay Jr. - who nagged his son incessantly to "write it all down." And so, the rollicking Mount Carmel Baptist Church becomes center stage because Hay Jr. was its hard-working chief deacon.
Sometimes archivist Hay dominates, with lists of everyone who served as Santas helpers and a litany of successive pastors. But then raconteur Hay grabs the pulpit and regales us with tales like the preacher who got so carried away with his sermon on David and Goliath that he wrapped his Bible in a handkerchief and slung it around his head until it went sailing into the congregation like a cruise missile. Then there were the struggles over drink - wine or not for communion or a pastor's own struggle. Hay tells of one preacher who would also get carried away - literally - that in the midst of a fiery sermon he would dash out the back door, leaving the congregats in puzzled silence.
"It just so happened that he ran to the trunk of his Cadillac and grabbed a quick swig of Old Grand Dad. After turning his sips into swallows, he placed the bottle behind the church so it would be quicker to get to" - until Deacon Hay Jr. turned detective and caught him in the act.
West Jupiter Quick Takes has so many deacon-pastor spats, budget battles and skirmishes over who ranks highest on the deacon totem pole that one finds himself asking, "What am I doing reading all this politicking about someone else's church?" Then the answer comes back quickly it's interesting and entertaining because it's what goes on at everybody's church.
Just as Hay wrote the landmark work on African American Theater (Cambridge University Press, 1994), West Jupiter could be the gold standard for the history of a small black community in America.
0 Response to "⇒ [PDF] West Jupiter Quick Takes Samuel Hay PhD 9780533163380 Books"
Post a Comment