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Posts Tagged ‘The Peace Corps’

There Is Supply AND Demand

Posted in Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged Adrift - America In 100 Charts, American Politics, Business, Costs, Economics, Empathy, Government, Government Service, Leadership, National Guard Youth Challenge, Philosophy, Professor Scott Galloway, Public Service, Quotes, Societal Benefits, Teach for America, The Peace Corps, Vocational Opportunities, YouthBuild on January 24, 2026| 2 Comments »

The benefits – fiscal and social – of national service programs far outweigh their cost. Programs like Teach for America, YouthBuild, and the National Guard Youth Challenge give young adults an opportunity to serve their fellow Americans alongside their peers. The latter two especially focus on offering vocational opportunities for non-college-bound youth, an area in which we lag far behind other developed countries. We should invest in and expand these offerings and explore a mandatory service obligation.

Public service generates the empathy so deeply needed in our hyperpartisan climate. And there is demand – the Peace Corps receives three times as many applications as it has spots.

— Scott Galloway
From his book: “Adrift – America in 100 charts“

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Click here (24 January) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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One Day…

Posted in 2023 Book Review, Book Review, Disclaimer, Reviews, tagged 2023 Book Review, “Child of the 1960s: A Day in the Life” (2023©) — book review, Baltimore Colts, Craig J. Carrozzi, Disclaimer, San Francisco, San Francisco 49ers, SF Giants, SF Mission District, South America, Strong to High Book Recommendation, The Peace Corps on July 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

“Child of the 1960s: A Day in the Life” (2023©) — book review
Today’s book review is for “Child of the 1960s: A Day in the Life”, an autobiographical memoir of a boy growing up in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. The author is Craig J. Carrozzi. The story centers around the events of a single day in December of 1966, but each event in the day evokes memories of earlier times and provides opportunities for the author to offer insights into the history of his family, his neighborhood, his city and, ultimately, to a society changing around him (and all of us, too).

Full disclosure: Craig (the author) and I played together on our high school football team for two seasons. After high school graduation, Craig got his BA and then joined the Peace Corps. Although he periodically returned to San Francisco (and the US), he subsequently lived a good deal of his life in South America. Like myself, Craig was raised in San Francisco. This is the latest of his seven published books. He has also written numerous articles. Of his seven published books – one is about attending a SF Giants baseball game as a youth; three are semi-autobiographical fictionalized stories about his time in South America; a novel about earlier days (late 1800’s) in Northern California; one is a murder / drug mystery (fictionalized) in San Francisco based on his time doing translation work for the FBI; and, this book – currently being reviewed.

As mentioned, the basic story line is a retrospective of the author’s life in San Francisco’s Mission District through the focus of a single day in the life of an eleven year old boy. It tracks the morning before the game, the reason for going to this particular game (a football game between the SF Forty-Niners and the Baltimore Colts), its playoff implications, the players, a play-by-play recount of the game and then the author’s evening after the game. During the day we are provided with flashbacks about the author’s friends, family and neighborhood – as the sights (and smells) of the day remind him of other things. The 256 page book concludes with a 15 page synopsis of his life since the subject day.

So, is this book any good? Is it realistic in it’s narration, character(s) and / or historic depictions? Is it entertaining and / or interesting? And, finally, do I recommend this book? Yes to all of the above.

Any good: The book is told as a retrospective first-person narrative. As I was reading, I felt as if I were sitting across a table from the author and we were just having a chat over coffee. His writing tone sounded just like I was having a conversation with him. To me, this made the book very readable and relatable. It is amazing to me that anyone can remember the specific details of any given day after 50+ years, but I guess we all have different memories and abilities. Personally, I doubt I could give you a hour-to-hour breakdown of any day beyond two days ago… But that is just me. The author attributes this recall ability to his early decision to become a writer and so he began collecting stories (memories).

Realism, characters and historic depictions: Characters (development) is / are always a tough thing to evaluate when an author is talking about actual people, particularly their own family members and even more particularly when you are trying to be honest but fair. With very few exceptions, I found the people and many situations to be similar to my own youth and family dynamics. In a strange way it made reading the book cathartic. One notable exception for me was at my Catholic grammar school, I never experienced the threat of physical / corporal punishment – that came later for me, in high school. In any case, I found reading about a dad who was a veteran, owned his own business, and still made time for his family, to be quite interesting (even if it is told from a son’s perspective). I grew up in a single parent family, so my only experience with “dad’s” was second hand through my friends’ fathers.

If I had a “minor” dispute about the historic depictions, it was, I felt, an oversimplification of the causes for the exodus of “blue-collar” jobs from San Francisco. I do agree completely with the author’s view that local economies are dynamic and integrated social ecosystems. If you remove a few of the critical parts, the whole can collapse. When San Francisco lost the wharves (container shipping) to Oakland, the writing was on the wall. The process accelerated with the overall American economic shift from manufacturing to service industries. The problem is “service” jobs are a difficult tiger to ride for a whole career. And as the saying goes: you either stay on the tiger or you get eaten by the tiger. Most get eaten…

Entertaining / interesting: I found the book both entertaining and interesting, with the exception of a bit too much depth on each of the stores / businesses on his walk to Sunday Mass. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the game between the 49ers and the Colts!! There is a minor riot in the stands at the end of the game. Again, I had a very similar “riot” in the crowd experience a few years after this when the 49ers lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the last eight minutes of the NFC Championship game. I don’t know if the play-by-play would be all that interesting to a reader unfamiliar with the sport (NFL football) or with little or no knowledge of the players from that period.

Final recommendation: Strong to Highly recommended! I enjoyed the writing style and the smooth weaving of family, friends, school and societal threads into the tapestry which was the author’s life experience. It was so well done, I frequently felt as if I was streaming a movie in my head. I don’t know if non-San Franciscans will necessarily appreciate this book except as a family story. I’d say for any current or past resident of the “City by the Bay“, particularly if you grew up in SF, you really should pick up a copy of this book.

Final thoughts: As much as I enjoyed the “stories” and the book, I found the misspellings and print formatting errors to be distracting and then (eventually) annoying. I have no clue as to the source of the publishing / typesetting / editing errors, so I’ll just leave the comment at that.

Disclaimer: I purchased this book at normal / full price (for a new book) through Amazon and no compensation has been provided to me by anyone for my opinions in this review.

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Click here (21 July) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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A Life Well Lived, A Story Well Told

Posted in 2022 Book Review, Book Review, Disclaimer, Family and Friends, Reviews, tagged 2022 Book Review, Craig J. Carrozzi, Dancing With Wolves, Disclaimer, Friends, Grizzly Bear, Hetch-Hetchy Valley, Highly Recommended Book, Ireland, Jeremiah Ignatius McElroy, Northern California, Oakland, San Francisco, SF Giants, The Curse Of Chief Tenaya -- book review, The Deer Hunter, The Last Of The Mohicans, The Peace Corps, Yosemite on September 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »

“The Curse Of Chief Tenaya” (2002©) — book review
Today’s book review is for a historic fiction novel set in 1800’s. The author is Craig J. Carrozzi. It is about an Irish immigrant coming to the United States and making his life through the pre-, actual and post- “Gold Rush” in Northern / Central California.

Full disclosure: Craig (the author) was a member of the football teams I played on while in high school in San Francisco. After high school graduation, Craig joined the Peace Corps, returned to San Francisco to get his BA and then subsequently lived a good deal of his life in South America. Like me, Craig was raised in San Francisco. He is the author of five published books and numerous articles. Of his five published books – one is about attending a SF Giants baseball game as a youth; three are semi-autobiographical fictionalized stories about his time in South America; and, this book (being reviewed) is about earlier days in Northern California.

The book’s main character is Jeremiah Ignatius McElroy. He is born in Ireland, starts off as a hard life (potato famine and Yellow Fever), moves to the US (via Canada), travels across the country / continent and ultimately becomes a hunter and tour guide in the Sierra Nevada mountains. His main geographic expertise is the high-country of Yosemite Valley and it’s “cousin”, the Hetch-Hetchy Valley. He spends the winters in Oakland, CA with his widowed younger sister and her family. Jeremiah is hired by a wealthy landowner to track down and destroy a Grizzly bear.

This is basically a “man’s” action book with a couple of interesting twists (interesting to me, anyway). First, the current day action is interspersed with the growing-up portion of Jeremiah’s life. The author / publisher uses the “trick” of italicizing the historical narration so the reader can clearly “see” when the author is talking about the past. The second interesting aspect of the book is an obvious attempt to include “real” famous / historic literary figures in the story. Hence, Jeremiah reads Ambrose Bierce columns in the daily newspaper; drinks with Jack London in a bar; and, meets John Muir while up in the hills.

The “action” portion is the life of the growing up, becoming a man and then aging and preparing for old age; but within the specific confines of the plot, it is the pursuit of a giant Grizzly which has been terrorizing cattle ranches in and around the Hetch-Hetchy area.

So, is this book any good? Is it realistic in it’s character(s) and / or historic depictions? Is it entertaining and / or interesting? And, finally, do I recommend this book?

In short – the answer is YES, to all of these questions. The book is relatively short (225 pages) and the story is a fast and well paced read. I read it completely in one sitting and found it hard to put down for my own meals. (This despite a good deal of delicious sounding meals through-out the book.)

In general, the book seems pretty accurate to very accurate in describing both people and locations. I must admit, I felt the author let a bit of his own “politics” come into the attitudes and language used in some of the conversations. One example is when Jeremiah uses the word “deforestation” in an extended dialogue. I looked the word up. The word is cited as first used around 1870, so it is possible Jeremiah might know it, but it seems to me, unlikely a hunter / trapper / outdoorsman / tour guide would know the word, let alone use the word. But, these are very minor flaws in an otherwise well written work. A brief clarification: I haven’t spoken with the author in over 50 years, so I really have no idea about his “politics” or if they are reflected in the writing. It’s just how I felt while reading the book.

And, “the Curse” itself? Well, it created a “hook” and theme for the book, but I felt it could have been better fleshed out. I’m not sure why I feel that way or how I might have advised the author to improve the story during development, but it (the “hook”, not the book as a whole) made me feel like I was reading a poor mix of “Dancing With Wolves“, “The Last of the Mohicans” and “The Deer Hunter“. Very much like those movies, the ending is thought provoking rather than PollyAnn-ish uplifting. A “Good” or “Bad” ending will then depend on the reader’s individual reaction to the ending. The “curse” was from the last Native American Chief of the tribe (Chief Tenaya, a non-literary, but “real person” from the period) which lived in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley. He pledged to haunt those who would despoil the tribes sacred lands (the Valley).

I found the book to be between “hard to put down” and “can’t put down”. That’s quite a statement from this reviewer. The descriptions of the skies, mountains, valleys, flowers and animals filled my imagination and reminded me of earlier outdoor travels and adventures from my own youth.

Final recommendation: Very highly recommended if you are into “masculine” adventure type action stories with a historical setting. Given I was raised in Northern California, I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of “old world” San Francisco, Oakland and the towns from the Bay Area to Hetch-Hetchy. If you are prudish, be advised there is some minor sexual content, but I felt it was well within the boundary of character and story development.

Disclaimer: I purchased this book at normal / sale price (for an old / used book) and no compensation has been provided to me by anyone for my opinions in this review.

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Click here (25 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.