My active reading in the book Holding On is going pretty good. In my opinion, I think that I am getting much better at writing things in the margins. I started out struggling, not knowing what to write but now I am starting to get the hang of things. I am also getting better at picking out important information from the chapter like facts and or important quotes. I am starting to be able to write good nut shells for the chapters and also I am doing much better at coming up with themes for each and every chapter. The strengths that I see in the book is how the author uses different styles to tell each profile of someone. The author is very good at grouping a bunch of separate profiles of people altogether. The book is very well thought out in my opinion. On the other hand, a weakness of the book I would have to say is how some profiles are long then some are short. In my opinion, I think that each and every profile should be around the same length as one another.
One profile that really stuck out to me was focused on Tommie Bass. I learned that he was a folk doctor that lived in Leesburg, Alabama. Tommie lived in a shack with no running water. Tommie became known as a herb doctor by running a junk business in his front yard. Tommie spent his days sitting in a chair outside of his home on the southern edge of the Appalachian mountains. All he did was wait for customers to come and visit him. "We've been in the herb business ever since 1918" (Isay 65). Tommie always referred to himself as "we". "Never made a dime out of it, but we sure have seen people get better!" (Isay 65). Another profile that really stuck out to me was focused on Donald Bean. I learned that Donald was a proprietor that lived in Moscow, Texas. I also learned that Donald opened up Dinosaur Gardens which was the park that was nearly one hundred thousand dollars to build. The park opened up in 1981. Donald stated "I always liked dinosaurs. They are large, they are big, and they ruled the world for years.. thousands of years.. Well, millions of years!" (Isay 69). Donald came up with the idea for the park in the late 1950's. It took Donald about twenty years of planning and saving before he was finally able to build his own park.
The profiles that I picked were similar because they were both based on someone running there own business that they came up with all on there own. They were different though because Tommie was a doctor while Donald was a proprietor. Also, both profiles took place in different states. On the other hand, both of the profiles that I picked from the book were both very similar in relating to how each profile was written. They were both wrote by the person being interviewed. In other words, the person that was being interviewed was telling the story on there own. The differences in the writing though would have to be is that they both started in different years. They also happen to tell different stories about how they created a business for there self and all of there steps that they had to go through for there dream to come true.
I did research on the profile of Donald Bean. I found that the dinosaur park in Texas was struggling to survive on November 30, 1986. I also found out that if Donald would have called in a team of marketing consultants he would not have invested his life savings. He wouldn't of built his dinosaur park. The nation would have lost his contribution very fast. Donald quit school after the eighth grade, and read all about dinosaurs for years and was finally able to develop descriptions and characteristics for each dinosaur. Donald was interested in dinosaurs, but even after six years in the dinosaur business he was not able to describe there appeal very good. Donald hopes the current revival of interest in dinosaurs will help his business, but he admitted that the progress had been slower then he had expected. Donald closed his park in January and February but stayed open the rest of the year.
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