Josh:Journal 8

Dreamers in our society today are valued very much. They influence us in so many ways and you either love them or you hate them. I think our culture definitely encourages eccentricity and uniqueness. I think everybody can relate to is people like to root for the underdogs. One example that comes to mind is former heavyweight champion, Buster Douglas from Columbus. He was a heavy underdog in his title match against Mike Tyson who was the undefeated champion at the time. Nobody thought that he would beat Tyson but he did and it is perhaps one of the biggest upsets in sports history.

So far my reading is going well. I find all the profiles very fascinating. One strength I like about the book is that the people iconic figures. They are normal hardworking unique people. At this point in my reading I can’t think of any weaknesses. One question I had was how did David Isay and Harvey Wang go about picking these people? How did they hear about them?

The profile that stuck out to me the most would probably be the first one about “Steam Train” Maury Graham. While reading his profile, I learned a lot more about the life of a Hobo. A theme that stuck out to me was unity. I always thought that Hoboes were loners traveling from place to place but I learned that Hoboes share a bond with each other and they even have their own convention. A phrase that stuck out to me was when Maury was talking about the difference between Hoboes and Bums. “You go in those bum camps and you might not come out of there, ‘cause they’ll rob you and they’ll hit you in the head. But if you stay around hoboes, they’ll look out for you and they’ll treat you nice.” This stuck out to me because I feel like I goes a lot with the theme I picked for this profile.