ezd -- Blogmeister

In the 1840’s and 50’s, Old Sacramento was extremely prone to floods and disease, such as cholera. In 1850, there was a cholera outbreak that wiped out almost the entire population of Sacramento! Surprisingly, many of the doctors did not flee. All of them stayed behind and some of them died.

In the 1850’s, there were many horrible floods that created the need to raise the city. When the workers were done, most of the city had been raised a total of twelve feet. Then came the great flood of 1862. In one hospital, some of the patients were unable to be saved, because the city had not yet been raised, and their beds could not be moved to a higher story. During the same flood, the governor had to take a boat into his mansion to the second story because the first was under water. In the end, a few levees were constructed to protect the city from floods, and were successful for a little while, but had to be built higher in order to protect the city from natural disaster.

The raising the city and the levees did prove to protect the city, but had they not, what would have happened? One thing that could have occurred was that the flood would have the entire city under water, and almost the whole population would perish. Although this was possible at the time, but did not happen due to experience and the brains of people.

By,
EZD

My class went to Westminster Woods for a week, and we wrote poetry while we were there. These are a few of my favorites.

Porcelain Crab
Sharp- clawed, feisty
Eating, scavenging, crawling
Tide pool, rocks, forest, duff
Running, hiding, sleeping
Quick, quiet
Deer

Cabin 5
Loud, fun, laughing
Cabin 5

Sea Anemones
Green, squishy
Filter- feeding, closing, amazing
Tide pool, rocks, forest, duff
Reaching, drinking, astonishing
Tall, magnificent
Redwoods

Deer
Fast, nimble, hiding, fearful, forever moving, peaceful, hunted
Deer

Octopus
Amazing, long-legged, colorful, swimming, scarcely found, hiding
Octopus

In The Terrible Wave, by Marden Dahlstedt, I believe that she uses very descriptive writing when she describes the catastrophe that befell Johnstown in 1889. I think that the writing describes exactly how frightening the wave was for the residents of Johnstown, especially when they knew that they wouldn’t be able to gather their valuables and their loved ones before the wave would be on top of their house, and smashing it to a pile of jagged timbers. Marden Dahlstedt also describes the oily, crowded messes that floated in the large stream of rubble that engulfed Johnstown.

In those few minutes, in which Johnstown flooded, she packs in many pages of information, most of which are about the mess of rubble floating down the streets. In her description, she also states the following about the objects that seemed to fly around in the air on page 23, that I like be.”. . .it seemed as thought the air were filled with flying objects. Trunks whirled by, wicked-looking boards splintered with nails, showers of broken glass winged a thousand tiny arrows, . . .” Another thing in this book that I think is very interesting is her description of the rubble floating in the water on page 28,” The awful lurching had stopped. A piano drifted beside her, its white keys looking like a great grinning mouth . . . It was a nightmare world. Nothing seemed real anymore.” I like this quote because I think that this is an example of how creative Marden is in her writing.

I believe that the writing style Marden Dahlstedt used in creating her book, The Terrible Wave, was very descriptive and made a boring, everyday object seem so exiting, scary, or interesting, like in chapter. I think that the style that Marden Dahlstedt uses is amazing literature in almost every way, and that everybody who can should read this book to see how she expresses her talent.
By, ezd

I think that one of the most important parts of California’s history was when California became part of the United States. The reason that I think that is because that event was going on for many, many years, and some famous generals were involved. The two events that helped California become part of the United States were the Bear Flag Revolt and War with Mexico. In my opinion, the more important event was the Bear Flag Revolt.

A reason that the Bear Flag Revolt was more important than the War with Mexico was that it was much longer than the war. After a man named John C. Fremont came to California, and was ordered out of the state, he went to Oregon, but soon came back. When Fremont revisited California, he started spreading rumors to American settlers that they, too would be ordered out of California. In very little time he had established a group of about 30 settlers who called themselves the Bear Flag Rebels. Once this group was made, they surrounded the home of general Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. The rebels then captured the general, and afterwards held him prisoner at Sutter’s Fort. Since they had captured him, they believed that they had control of the state of California. However, little did they know, that there was already a war going on in a different part of the state. When the rebels realized that there was a war going on, they teamed up with John D. Sloat and his large group of soldiers to try and defeat the Califorios, and win California from Mexico. As it turned out, the United States were able to defeat the Californios, and the reason that they were able to was that the United States had more soldiers, and the Bear Flag Rebels had added to that cause, which had won California from Mexico.

By,
ezd