Born in Boston in 1917 and raised in New York, Tom Chapman s first memories take us to New York City at the start of the Great Depression. As Tom will tell you, the Big Apple is a bad place to be without money. Because of the personal wealth of its inhabitants and its reputation as the financial center of the world, nowhere were the effects of the Great Depression as stark, nor lifestyles more drastically altered. However, Tom says, the years of the Great Depression were not depressing. The word "depression" referred to the economic condition, not the state of the people. "Actually, there was a great energy abroad in the land which may, in the light of events, be perplexing, but it was there and it was damned exciting. We were convincingly busted, but not depressed." The absence of money had spawned an American culture that fed on the warped humor and touching humanity of a shared poverty.
The Great American Hot Dog paints a picture of a unique family the Chapmans. There s his father, whose unpredictability sends a broken radio sailing through the window of their tenth floor apartment and a stubborn outdoor grill into the ocean. You ll love his mother and her sisters, hysterically wicked women who render nothing but glee from the Great Depression, and you ll laugh out loud as his baby brother is carried home from the hospital upside down.
But more than just focusing on a particular family, The Great American Hot Dog takes you on a journey through a vintage time, alive with the grandeur of dreams and daring, panache and a penchant for life.
Throughout the laughs and pearls of wisdom, The Great American Hot Dog provides the jolt we need to bring us back to center to a place where we, too, cherish our families, flaunt fortune with our laughter and turn a stumble into a dance step.
