Kokomo

As we move out of the past and into the present, our landscape is forever altered by the passing of time. The face of Kokomo, "The City of Firsts," has changed over the years. Once an image of small-town Americana, Kokomo has grown-expanding its industrial reach, enticing new residents, and continuing to be the first in a number of fields. Kokomo, Indiana: Then and Now takes the reader back to a simpler time in Kokomo history. Using historic images paired with contemporary photos, authors Thomas D. and Barbara Hamilton have created a charming view of the area's history and evolution.

According to legend, Kokomo, Indiana was named after a Miami Indian Chief who lived in the area, "Ma Ko Ko Mo" -meaning Black Walnut. Founded in 1842 by David Foster, a frontier trader, Kokomo has since become the home to many of the nation's most influential inventions. From the birthplace of the automobile to the introduction of stainless steel and the development of canned tomato juice, Kokomo has been a leader in ingenuity, earning its nickname, the "City of Firsts." In this collection of reminiscent images, Kokomo, Indiana illustrates the charming history of an area which has developed from a small community to what is now one of the largest cities in Indiana. The book is an exploration of the city's streets and a stroll through the history of its growing neighborhoods, tracing the fascinating past of a bygone age.

The first Japanese American jockey, Kokomo Joe burst like a comet on the American horse-racing scene in the summer of 1941. As war with Japan loomed, Yoshio ?Kokomo Joe? Kobuki won race after race, stirring passions far beyond merely the envy and antagonism of other jockeys. His is a story of the American dream catapulting headlong into the nightmare of a nation gripped by wartime hysteria and xenophobia. The story that unfolds in Kokomo Joe is at once inspiring, deeply sad, and richly ironic?and remarkably relevant in our own climate of nationalist fervor and racial profiling. ø Sent to Japan from Washington State after his mother and three siblings died of the Spanish flu, Kobuki continued to nurse his dream of the American good life. Because of his small stature, his ambition steered him to a future as a star jockey. John Christgau narrates Kobuki?s rise from lowly stable boy to reigning star at California fairs and in the bush leagues. He describes how, at the height of the jockey?s fame, even his flight into the Sonora Desert could not protect him from the government?s espionage and sabotage dragnet. And finally he recounts how, after three years of internment, Kokomo Joe tried to reclaim his racing success, only to fall victim to still-rampant racism, a career-ending injury, and cancer.

Just off the Continental Slope, in the aqua-green waters near the Straits of Florida, is Key Kokomo. Purchased in the early nineteen thirties by a French orphan, the key became an opulent tourist resort known as the "Key Kokomo, Pier House Resort." Jethro Thurman Billman, or JT, built his resort on a pier jetting out into the crystal clear waters of the Atlantic. On this key, freshly divorced Chet Walker discovers his worst nightmare is not running from an alcoholic broken marriage. He looks beyond Key Kokomo's lush tropical palm tree lined beaches, wispy pine forests, and murky mangrove swamps, and sees a true monster in the key's owner JT. The two men become natural enemies, as Chet meeting new friends, wrestles with the ghosts of his past and his dreams for a future, and JT tries to consume yet one more tortured soul. JT's desperate plan, to continue a dying bloodline, starts to unravel, during a freakish early January hurricane, called Annabelle. Key Kokomo a tropical resort paradise, where love and alcohol flow as free as milk and honey, dreams glow as fresh as the morning sun, and reality comes with a sobering price.

Kokomo Kid is about more than just growing up in a medium-sized Indiana city, where factories flourished and neighbors were actually neighborly. It's about the human dynamic and how our past forms and sometimes even predicts our future, whether we like it or not. It is what we do with those feelings and memories rising from good and bad moments that defines our character as we meander toward our golden years. This simple and sincere book is a sentimental journey to a time of innocence, love, and lost loves--a nostalgic, introspective, inspiring peek into the diary of the atypical childhood of a midwestern gal.

Frankie Horvath is not happy. He's almost forty. He's fat. His wife is dead. He designs forks for a living. And his son might just be the Antichrist. Frankie is about to meet with Satanists to find out the truth once and for all. Taking into account Frankie's lifelong delusions of grandeur, and the gun stuffed down the front of his pants, a bloody showdown for the fate of mankind is not out of the question.