{"id":25,"date":"2008-04-20T10:34:53","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T18:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/?p=25"},"modified":"2008-04-20T12:03:59","modified_gmt":"2008-04-20T20:03:59","slug":"touched-by-lightning-excerpts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/?p=25","title":{"rendered":"Loesser: Excerpts from Touched by Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"

This fall, the Emergency Press will publish Touched By Lightning <\/span>by Ernest Loesser, the second-place winner of our recent book contest. In accordance with the contest rules, we are going forward with this manuscript as the publication of the winning book has been delayed indefinitely. \u00c2\u00a0Here are a few selections:\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our Community Laments the Recently Departed<\/span><\/o><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/p>\n

Jean Dobrer, <\/em>former high school principal and calendar girl, Miss June 1965. <\/span>Lucy Altman<\/em>, a dedicated wife and the proud mother of three Ivy League graduates. <\/span>Russell Brunner<\/em>, married into wealth. <\/span>Dorothea Fisk, <\/em>member of the horticultural club who had prize-winning orchids. <\/span>Sgt. Esteban J. Ramirez, <\/em>soldier in the First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division, killed in action.<\/span> Richard Bonanno, <\/em>proprietor of Calabretta’s Pizzeria for 63 years. <\/span>Carmine Christo, <\/em>director of the Twin Rivers Country Club and ping-pong champion. <\/span>Danielle Chisholm, <\/em>a maverick who never married but was never lonely. <\/span>Anthony Baldwin, <\/em>sang Otis Redding to his baby daughter. <\/span>Father Bishop Joseph Crisfasi, <\/em>was lucid on his deathbed when he uttered, Totus tuus, a Latin motto for “completely yours”. <\/span>Naftali Gibson, <\/em>doubted her parents’ religion. <\/span>Helen Kingsley, <\/em>a community board member and a real good one. <\/span>Mary J. Sage, <\/em>valedictorian, law firm partner, who had many enemies. <\/span>David Weber, <\/em>struck dead while riding his bicycle home from elementary school. <\/span>Sylvia Cutler, <\/em>beloved mother and swim instructor who meditated on fidelity. <\/span>Ritchie Lono, <\/em>was a career penitentiary guard who was taken hostage during a three-day prison riot. <\/span>David Newman, <\/em>an auto mechanic who painted watercolors for 40 years and no one ever knew. <\/span>Charles Palms, <\/em>father of eight, a former district president with the Black Panther Party and a talented gunsmith. <\/span>Bert Reinhold, <\/em>threw parties every Friday and his friends are bored now. <\/span>BJ Turner, <\/em>had a rags to riches story. <\/span>Eleanor Stevens, <\/em>knitted 37 sweaters and 16 quilts, her favorite season was autumn.<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forgotten Daughter Dies at Boarding House <\/span><\/o><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/p>\n

Claire Clayton, 86, who was involuntarily held at a Nevada mental institution for 51 years, died yesterday in a Reno boarding house. A city medical examiner recorded the case as dysentery. Ms. Clayton was committed to a state hospital on April 28, 1934. Her parents were strict Baptists and disapproved of the youthful liberties their eldest daughter requested and exercised. Claire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parents forced her to participate in a church exorcism after discovering their daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hidden collection of make-up and fashion magazines. After the exorcism, Claire ransacked the family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home and attacked her mother. At the Sunny Peaks Hospital Ms. Clayton was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but in a review after her release in 1985 it was determined her original symptoms displayed psychotic depression and hospital records revealed the symptoms quickly subsided. For each Christmas Claire received a toy doll provided by the Salvation Army. As a result of her extended period confined within a hospital, Ms. Clayton was afflicted with an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153institutional syndrome\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that left her withdrawn and incapable of showing emotion. Ms. Clayton received no education during her period under supervision or any reparations afterwards. Her parents died in a car accident in 1942, but no extended family members contacted the hospital. Her eventual release came when state auditors determined it would be fiscally and ethically responsible to release patients that displayed no threat to society. Clair Clayton, whose mental development progressed little beyond that of an adolescent was buried with her collection of dolls.<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Air Force Veteran, 85, Falls at Daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Home <\/span><\/o><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/o><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Think of geese honking and coughing, flying in low off the lake,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is how Captain Clifford Chance described to his youngest grandson, the sound of the B-17 he piloted during the European Theater. Captain Chance flew Detroit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Diamond for six months and was among the first American bombers to complete 25 missions without losing one man. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She was a ten gun, four engine bird, with a buxom lass brandishing a big old gem on her finger painted right up on the nose of the ship,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Morgan Cash, Detroit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Diamond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s surviving tail gunner. Some military historians dispute that Detroit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Diamond was the first aircraft to complete 25 missions. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She was in nothing but a skimpy bathing suit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recalled Cash. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who could have missed that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The legacy of Detroit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Diamond and her crew were spun off into comic books, a TV mini-series, and eventually a Hollywood feature. After returning home, Captain Chance never accepted an endorsement or appeared on the popular radio programs of the time. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stick with me Cliff and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be a star,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his wife Nancy told him. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had 24 air shows booked this year alone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In the 37 years that Captain Chance was employed with the Michelin Tire Company he never took one sick day. Captain Clifford Chance died after breaking his neck in a fall at his daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home outside of Detroit.<\/o><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This fall, the Emergency Press will publish Touched By Lightning by Ernest Loesser, the second-place winner of our recent book contest. In accordance with the contest rules, we are going forward with this manuscript as the publication of the winning book has been delayed indefinitely. \u00c2\u00a0Here are a few selections:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 Our Community Laments the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emergencypress.org\/almanac\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}