By Logan A.

Well, if you have found this bottle you are probably stranded at sea or on a beach somewhere. And is probably your last hope of living or last contact with humanity. This probably won't help you much but I am going to tell you anyway. I am also stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

This is a very large island with a volcano in the middle of it. If you see it then you need to do whatever you can to get to it. This island has plenty of fresh water running through it, also it has many fruits and an enormous abundance of wildlife to kill and eat. If you need these things for survival then you need to get here. I have a continuous fire going so if you se smoke then that's the island that I have been stranded on for three years now and it is January 7, 2006. If you are on a beach somewhere then send help. I am ready to come home. I got here after my private aircraft crashed and I was lucky enough to eject myself from the plane. So if you can please help. I have been living of the land for three years and I am sick of it, I need help. Also if you do find me on this island I have found a huge treasure. This treasure is solid gold, copper, silver and bronze. So it is worth quite a bit, I found this treasure in the bottom of a cave on the island. I have collected all of it and have a total of 137 copper coins, 101silver coins, 66 solid gold coins, and 237 bronze coins. Also there is a large silver monument in the shape of a king, which could be 45 feet tall. This is not even counting the 337 bronze bars. They were scattered among the coins  and have been engraved with some form of Aztec writing, which means they are thousands of years old. If you do come and somehow find me and help me back to the United States I will split the profits with you 50-50.

Also I have struck oil in the center of the island, I was digging one day trying to make an animal trap and I stumbled upon oil. I have no idea how much oil costs but I will also split the amount if you find me. To give you an estimation of where I am located, I am approximately 250 miles of the coast of California. I am directly west of Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco according to my compass. If you are stranded I have plenty of food and water for you so don't just float by.

The island can be hard to spot if floating from the north to the island due to the huge boulders which line the northern border of the island. You won't be able to tell there is any island at all until at all until you are almost past it. There are several pelican nests on these boulders. If you see several birds flying around, try to direct yourself right toward them. (You won't crash into them; there is a small beach.) Also beware there are several great white sharks that inhabit the waters. Along with the sharks there are several jagged rocks lining the water which will easily pop and sink a raft. This won't be good because they are stuck right in the middle of the shark infested waters.

Along with half of the profits that I mentioned, I will also give the person who rescues me a five $5,000 cash reward. And I have found a few new species of deer, and a yellow species of turtle which has a soft shell. You will also get credit for finding these animals. I have also discovered a new breed of panther which is purple and I have killed 37 and have saved the fur. This should be worth quite a bit of money to also split with you. When you arrive on the island, I will more than likely be on the north side of the island where the huge boulders are near my fire and the place where I sleep. Beware of the dangerous animals on the island.

-- Joseph Jones

 2.

"Wolves? You can't be serious Ulrich! You must have too much blood in your eyes!" Georg laughed nervously.

"No. I'm afraid not. I'm sorry, friend," Ulrich sighed with exhaustion.

"Maybe, just maybe, we can make it out of this. If we work together," Georg struggled for breath, his lungs squished by the tree.

Out of nowhere, Ulrich's men appeared. They helped him get free. Georg got very quiet, then spoke again.

"Ulrich, have you freed yourself?"

"Yes, Georg, I have. My men are here. They have helped me," Ulrich smiled.

"Then you can free me too!" Georg yelled in excitement.

"Ahh, that is where you are wrong, my friend. I have waited far too long to own this land. I'm not going to lose that chance by helping you now!" Ulrich laughed evilly.

"But Ulrich! Please!" Georg pleaded, but it was too late.

Ulrich and his men raced off, away from the wolves, and away from the tree. Georg's shrieks of pain and his constant begging for help eventually faded into the darkness. Then, in the blink of an eye, Ulrich tripped over a tree root and hit the ground with a loud thunk.

"Men! Come help me! I have fallen!" Ulrich yelled. His head throbbed, and he couldn't feel his leg. As he felt it his hand brushed along a huge gouge, and something else that was very sharp.

"Argh! My leg is broken! Someone, come help me!" He yelled again.

No one responded. He couldn't even hear Georg anymore.

But there was one thing he could hear-the howling of wolves and the pattering of feet-getting nearer and nearer.

--Aly O

We went scuba diving and when we surfaced we had no idea where we were. The only things in sight were a cluster of islands that none of us recognized. We looked around and into the distance there was no ship in sight. So we all swam over to the island and looked for any sign of salvation ... there was nothing. When we got to the island, there was nothing there. There was plenty of food but we had no idea what was poisonous and what was safe. We searched all around and we got some dry wood and got a fire started with Stephanie's amazing fire starting skills. We gathered some supplies that we knew were good for us to eat, such as raspberries, strawberries, mangos, and coconuts. It was a start.

We all had time enough to get leaves and bamboo to make a small shelter before nightfall. The next morning there was still no sight of a ship so we decided to explore a little bit. The island was HUGE! There was plenty of food, we found a fresh water stream, and it was so beautiful. We made a better shelter and after that none of us wanted to leave. But little did we know we weren't alone. The second night we spent on our new home was going to be something we would never forget.

We are all deep in conversation and watching the stars. All of a sudden we heard people walking around in the forest, most of my friends started freaking out but Stephanie and I let go of fear and went into stealth mode. We got a few sticks from the fire and when we went over to the perpetrators we found out that it wasn't a perpetrator at all it was more scubadivers that got left behind. We let them stay at our new home and we got along well.

We were there for a week and a half by the time that we knew how to get around the island without getting lost, we had plenty of food and we loved it there but we missed our families. We would go everyday to the shore and watch for passing ships but there was nothing. We were all scared that we would die on this island with only each other, and never see our families again. After another week of waiting we decided to check out the surrounding islands to see if anything was there, we found more food, and some ruins. We thought we were in the Caribbean but now we realized we were in the Bermuda Triangle. That's why we got lost and had no idea where we were for so long, we were in a no man's land.

We thought we would never get off that island. In the turn of events that followed our whole existence turned around. One day while walking, we walked passed one of the ruins. We looked around a bit and found what seemed to be the remains of a castle. There were gold particles and large pillars that had been eroded in time. Usually we would just pass the ruins to get to the food, but now we started to explore and noticed some tools that we knew the people that lived here would never be able to use. And a little farther off the ruins we found a little campground with a group of Archeologists in a circle eating lunch. We spied for awhile then went back to our home on the other island to get the others; we went back later to find the Archeologists hard at work on the ruins. We walk into the clearing were the Archeologists were and startled them by accident. They asked how we got there so we told them the whole story and they sent for a boat to bring us home.

It must be the time of year--these final weeks leading up to Christmas--that is why I can't stop thinking about FOOD! There are so many great traditions to look forward to. Being an Italian American, I get to eat homemade spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, fettuccini alfredo and baked ziti all the time, but when the holidays roll around, I'm actually more excited to eat fish. Yeah, you read it right. And not just fish sticks and tartar sauce, I'm talking fish that most kids would gag over. Yes, I, Jennifer, look forward to smelly, fishy foods with tails and tentacles on Christmas Eve. Now, how could a person who ate homemade spaghetti every Sunday be convinced to eat fish on such an important holiday and actually enjoy it?

When I was a kid, our family ate at least seven different kinds of fish on Christmas Eve; a gluttonous feast prepared every year by an epicurean trinity: My Nana, my Grandma and my Mom. There was no arguing with the trinity about the menu. Each of these women took a shine to a certain dish, which through the years became her specialty.

Nana's favorite was the calamari and the squid. Standing no more than five feet, Nana would fight with the best of the Italian ladies on Tremont Avenue's fish market to pick out the absolute freshest squid she could buy. "Nothing but the best for her family," Nana would say. Watching her prepare these tiny, tentacled creatures was less than appetizing. But she did season, batter, bread, and fry each wriggly piece so that when they were dipped in freshly made tomato sauce, they just tasted like butter! My dad literally salivates at the mere thought of Nana's calamari and I remember even as a kid, watching him eat them and thinking how much he resembled a little boy in a sandbox!

Next, was Grandma's fresh shrimp cocktail. Just as fresh as Nana's squid, Grandma's shrimp lived up to the name "fruit of the sea" because they would pop like a sweet, ripe orange when you bit into one. Grandma sat me down in her kitchen when I was about eight years old to teach me how to properly de-vein a shrimp. Keep in mind, in my family activities such as these are considered a rite of passage. Grandma said, "If you position the knife at the tippy top of the shrimp's back and make a slice all the way down to the tale, the vein will just slide right out!" And she was right. Through her expert teachings, my shrimp cleaning skills far exceed many adults; though describing the process to my girlfriends at school did not win me any popularity contests!

Finally, there was Mom's breaded and fried flounder. Oh! My mouth is watering just thinking about it! Every Christmas Eve, after mass, my Mom and I would wrap ourselves in aprons so as not to ruin our dresses. It was my job to sprinkle bread crumbs in one plate and flour in another while Mom would wash the fish and beat the eggs. Then, the assembly line would begin. I would cover each piece of fish in flour and egg and pass it off to Mom who was in charge of breading and frying. And while our fish was being prepared, we had this great tradition of singing and dancing to this Christmas tape she bought in a drug store with all these really funny Christmas songs that, to this day, I've never heard anywhere else. Those songs, the fried flounder and my mother's arms working diligently next to mine for all those years are memories I will remember every Christmas Eve. I still have that cassette tape!

Well, there you have it. The trinity of yum. I'm not sure who made the rest of the seven fish. Sometimes, Nana would do more than one, sometimes an aunt or cousin would bring some, but we have always enjoyed a giant fish dinner the night before Christmas. Somehow, many years later, it's not the toys I remember most or the snow, or pretty Christmas dresses, it's the fish and the amazing trinity who taught me how to cook it.

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones.

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and position a rack in the top third of the oven. Thoroughly combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of this mixture, add 1 1/4 cups of cream and stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a fork. Work quickly, stirring as little as possible, until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Add more cream, a tablespoon at a time, if the dough seems too dry.

During a time in America when no women, including African American women were encouraged to speak their minds, Lorraine Hansberry was chasing her dreams. She chased them, caught them and committed them to paper by writing one of the most poignant, endearing, and inspirational plays in American history. The time was the 1950's, and the name of play, A Raisin in the Sun was taken from a line of the Langston Hughes poem called:

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

You might say that Lorraine Hansberry's childhood was unique. Her parent's home was often visited by distinguished African Americans such as W.E.B. Dubois, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson and the very famous poet above, Langston Hughes! Lorraine made it clear how influential Langston Hughes had been in her life by writing an entire play based on the ideas in his poem.

A Raisin in the Sun asks its audience to consider such themes as racial discrimination, assimilation, generation gaps and dreams. Every character in Lorraine's play has a dream. Walter wants to be a successful business owner, Beneatha, wants to be a doctor, Ruth wants a house for her family, and Mama just wants a garden to grow her little plant. By connecting her play to Hughes' poem Harlem, Lorraine asks her audience to consider what happens to a dream deferred? What happens when we put them off for another day? The poem is symbolic of the absolute urgency her characters feel to make their dreams a reality. In reading A Raisin in the Sun, we realize Lorraine is showing us that even though we may not see how, there is more than one way for a dream to come true, but like the characters in her play, the consequences of putting off your dreams could be dire!

I can understand why Lorraine was so impressed by Harlem. The imagery allows us to experience how different people might feel if they put off their dreams. The poem is saying that without our dreams, we may rot, we may fester. We may just shrivel up and die! Not one image suggests hope or encouragement. Dreams are delicate and fruitful until they ignored.

Lorraine faced a great amount of adversity in her life as an educated African America woman, and yet she became the first black female playwright to see her play on Broadway! And this was during the civil rights movement when blacks and women were still fighting for equal rights! It's understandable why dreams were such an important theme in her work and in her life. Lorraine read this poem by her father's famous friend and became forever inspired and forever committed to making her dreams come true. Thanks to her poetic muse, Lorraine's dreams were not deferred!

Make Lorraine Hansberry your muse and your inspiration to make your dreams come true! Or find a poem or book that lights your dreams on fire and write to inspire others! And don't forget to tell us about it!