Creativity Corner

“Memories of Government Springs Park”

By Bobbie Kirkhart

Gov­ern­ment Springs Park was once the pride of Enid, Okla­homa. Dur­ing my child­hood, gov­ern­ment was con­sid­ered a good thing, so we often used that full name in admi­ra­tion. Today it’s usu­al­ly called sim­ply Springs Park. Every school child knew it had been a camp site on the old Chisholm Trail, the best known of the routes used to dri­ve cat­tle from Texas to the Kansas rail­roads after the Civ­il War.

Pho­to cred­it: Bill Robinson

It was a per­fect camp­ground: hills over­look­ing the flat land where the cat­tle grazed and, most impor­tant, the drink­ing water from nat­ur­al springs that fed the lake. These things also made a per­fect park for chil­dren: the flat land – then punc­tu­at­ed with unsafe but excit­ing wood­en swings, hand-oper­at­ed mer­ry-go-rounds, and see­saws – was great for run­ning. We could drink from the springs, at that time cor­ralled by a pipe. I’m sure the water was less than pure, but I nev­er knew any­one to get sick from it. We could climb the gen­tle hills to the swim­ming pool, and, on spe­cial occa­sions, my father would spring for a quar­ter to rent a row­boat to take us on the lake.

It was a child’s par­adise except that we could nev­er climb the steep­er hills on the south side of the lake. That was reserved for the “col­ored peo­ple,” as the oth­er two-thirds of the park was reserved for whites. I was curi­ous, as chil­dren are about any­thing for­bid­den, but nev­er dared to go. I under­stood my par­ents didn’t agree with the law, but it was the law, and argu­ing was not permitted.

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Teaching Tools

Introduction to Literature: Robert Coover’s “A Sudden Story”

By Sibylle Machat

Intro­duc­tion to Lit­er­a­ture. Fic­tion. The ses­sion on nar­ra­tive per­spec­tives – some­thing that teach­ers often love, but first year lit­er­a­ture stu­dents just as often dread (close to the hor­rors of met­ri­cal feet in poet­ry). Nev­er­the­less, the syl­labus calls for a dis­cus­sion of either Franz Stanzel’s nar­ra­tive sit­u­a­tions, Ger­ard Genette’s nar­ra­tion and focal­iza­tion, or both.

What can we do to make all of this at least a lit­tle exciting?

Sibylle Machat’s per­son­al copy of Robert Coover’s “A Sud­den Sto­ry.” In: Robert Shep­ard, Ed. Sud­den Fic­tion. Amer­i­can Short-Short Sto­ries. Gibb M. Smith: Lay­ton, 1986.

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Access America, Best Books & Fabulous Films, Teaching Tools

American Studies Blog Contest

“pen_mesh_bw” by Sean Bid­dulph is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

As we approach the 5th anniver­sary of the Amer­i­can Stud­ies Blog (http://blog.asjournal.org/), we decid­ed to cel­e­brate by ask­ing you – our read­ers – to par­tic­i­pate in the joy­ful occa­sion of our first blog competition.

Although blog­ging has changed over the years, it’s still a great plat­form to voice your ideas and share con­tent with peo­ple around the world. Now choose a top­ic that fits into at least one of three zeit­geisty cat­e­gories and try your talents:

  • Access Amer­i­ca (Pop­u­lar Cul­ture, His­to­ry, and Cur­rent Events)
  • Best Books & Fab­u­lous Films (Reviews and More)
  • Teach­ing Tools (Tips, Tricks, and Tools of the Trade)

And remem­ber: The sky’s the limit.

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Access America

The Berlin Blockade

By Andreas Hübner

Berlin­ers watch a Dou­glas C‑54 Sky­mas­ter land at Tem­pel­hof Air­port, 1948

Sev­en­ty years ago, on May 12, 1949, the Berlin Block­ade came to an end. Nowa­days con­sid­ered a cor­ner­stone of the Cold War Era, the block­ade had been ini­ti­at­ed eleven months ear­li­er by the Sovi­et mil­i­tary admin­is­tra­tion in response to the intro­duc­tion of a new cur­ren­cy, the Deutsche Mark, in the Amer­i­can, British, and French occu­pa­tion zones of Ger­many and the allied sec­tors of Berlin. The Sovi­ets under­stood the D‑Mark as a pre­lude to the estab­lish­ment of a sin­gle eco­nom­ic unit and a new gov­ern­ment in West Ger­many. Thus, to pre­vent the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the cur­ren­cy and to force the West­ern coali­tion to aban­don the city, the Sovi­et mil­i­tary admin­is­tra­tion began block­ing West Berlin, halt­ing all rail, road and barge traf­fic as well as cut­ting off gas and elec­tric­i­ty supplies.
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Creativity Corner

Brevity is the Soul of Wit: Whipping up a Flash Fiction Collection

By Maryann Henck

Flash fic­tion is not only a fun and quick read, but also a fun and not-always-so-quick write. The key is to cre­ate a suc­cinct sto­ry – rang­ing from 250 to 1000 words – that prefer­ably focus­es on one spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter and ends with a twist or epiphany for the char­ac­ter in ques­tion. In my cre­ative writ­ing sem­i­nar, “A Way with Words – Away with Words,” Rebec­ca rose to the flash-fic­tion chal­lenge and com­posed a three-piece col­lec­tion enti­tled The French Con­nec­tion – an homage to the art­sy and quirky char­ac­ters that pop­u­late the Parisian land­scape. The first instal­ment, “Belle Époque,” recounts the mus­ings of a some­body from a small town who always dreamed of mak­ing it big.

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