My family is part of the Miami (1) tribe a Native American people, with strong ties to territory in present-day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Growing up in the Midwest, I often heard my grandmother talk about "Miami time." When she was doing something she loved, whether it was (2) making freezer jam or researching tribal history, she refused to be (3) rushed in a hurry. “I’m on Miami time today," she would say. Conversely, if we were running late for an (4) appointment. She would chide us by saying, "Get a move on. We're not running on Miami time today, you know."

(5) It was a difficult concept for me to grasp. My grandmother tried to explain that "Miami time" referred to those (6) moments, when time seemed to slow down or stand still. Recently, the meaning of her (7) words started to sink in. 

One morning, my son and I (8) will inadvertently slip out of the world measured in seconds, minutes, and hours, and into one measured by curiosity and sensation.

[1] On a familiar trail near our house, I was pushing Jeremy in his stroller and (9) were thinking of the day ahead and the tasks I had to complete. [2] Suddenly, he squealed with pure delight and pointed toward a clearing. [3] There, two (10) does and three fawns stood watching us. [4] Five pairs of ears flicked like antennae seeking a signal. [5] After a few moments, the deer lowered their heads and began to eat, as if they had decided we were harmless. [6] By then, my son's face was full of wonder. [11]

We spent the rest of the morning veering from the trail to investigate small snatches of life. Lizards lazing in the sun and quail (12) rustled through grasses surprised us.

Wild blackberries melted on our tongues. (13) For example, the aroma of crushed eucalyptus leaves tingled in our noses.

By the time we found our way back to the car, the sun was high in the sky. We had taken three hours to complete a hike we usually finished in forty-five minutes. Yet the hike felt (14) shorter then ever. As we drove off, I remembered something else my grandmother used to say: "Miami time passes all too quickly." 

The artist Faith Ringgold has made a name for herself with her "story quilts," lively combinations of painting, quilting, and storytelling. Each artwork consists of a painting framed by quilted squares of fabric and story panels. One of these artworks, The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Aries, depicts a scene of women at work on a quilt in a field of towering yellow (16) flowers that eight African American women sit around the quilt that covers their laps. Who are these people stitching among the flowers? What brings them so close that their shoulders touch?

(17) Thus, the answers to these questions can be found in the artwork itself. Ringgold has (18) told the story of this gathering on two horizontal panels of text. One panel is sewn into the piece's top border, the other into (19) it’s bottom border. These eight (20) women the story explains, strove (21) in their various ways to support the cause of justice in the world.

In (22) reality, these women never met to piece together a quilt. The scene comes out of the (23) artists imagination as a statement of the unity of purpose that she perceives in their lives. Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman fought to abolish slavery and, later, (24) was active in the crusade for suffrage. Newspaper journalist Ida B. (25) Wells courageously spoke out for social and racial justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Establishing her own hair products (26) business, herself in the first decade of the twentieth century, (27) millions of dollars were later bequeathed by Madam C. J. Walker to charities and educational institutions. Among the schools that benefited from this (28) generosity, were those that Mary McLeod Bethune opened and ran in order to provide a better education for Black students. And Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and Rosa Parks showed leadership and strength during the civil rights (29) movement, it happened in the 1950s and 1960s. 

In the artwork, Ringgold has surrounded these women with bright sunflowers. The flowers seem to celebrate the women's accomplishments and the beauty of their shared vision. [30] 

Our technologically advanced times (31) has allowed filmmakers to create spectacular science fiction films to intrigue us with worlds beyond our experience. Imagine the excitement in (32) 1902 when audiences first saw Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon), a groundbreaking movie produced by Georges Melies.

[1] Undaunted, Melies honed his photographic skills to tell fantasy stories instead. [2] Melies, a French magician, was fascinated by the workings of the new motion picture camera. (3) Specializing in stage illusions, he thought the camera offered potential to expand (33) its spectacular magic productions. (4) By 1895, he was working with the new invention. (5) He found (34) out, however, that the public preferred live magic acts to filmed versions. [35]

Melies’s magician’s eye led him to discover the basics of special effects. [36] He experimented with effects such as speeding up and slowing down the action, reversing it for backward movement, and superimposing images of fantastic creatures over real people. Using overhead pulleys and trapdoors, (37) he was able to do interesting things.

Aware of the popularity of Jules Verne's science fiction novels, Melies saw exciting possibilities in filming a space odyssey. The interplanetary travel film that he created, A Trip to the Moon, had production costs of $4,000, (38) highly excessively for its time. In this film, a space capsule (39) that is fired and thereby launched and projected from a cannon lands in the eye of the Man in the Moon.

In a strange terrain filled with hostile (40) creatures, the space travelers experience many adventures. They escape back to Earth in the capsule by falling off the edge of the (41) moon, landing in the ocean, they bob, around until a passing ship finally rescues them.

Producing the film long before interplanetary explorations (42) had began, Melies could (43) arouse his audience's curiosity with unconstrained fantasy. (44) People are still going to theaters to see science fiction films.

I thought the Nancy Drew mystery series had (46) went out of style. I was sure that girls growing up today would have more up-to-date role models and my generation's favorite sleuth (47) would of been retired to the (48) library's dusty, back rooms. I was wrong. 

Nancy Drew, the teenaged heroine of (49) heaps of young adult mystery (50) novels, is alive and well and still on the job. I know because my niece, Liana, and her friends were reading (51) that all summer long. By the time Liana went back to (52) school and had followed Nancy Drew on a safari to (53) solve The Spider Sapphire Mystery and had explored lncan ruins for clues to The Secret of the Crossword Cipher.

(54) With Nancy's help, Liana had read about different places and various cultures all over the world.

When I was a girl in the 1960s, my friends and I loved Nancy Drew. [55] We loved her loyal companions, her bravado, and (56) there was a love for her freedom to do what she wanted.

We (57) also loved how smart she was and how pretty, how confident and successful. We were surprised and delighted that eighteen-year-old Nancy was so accomplished at so many things. She (58) was able to solve crimes, win golf tournaments, kick bad guys in the shins, and impress her father’s distinguished clients. She did it all-and without scuffing her shoes or losing her supportive boyfriend, Ned.

Liana and her friends don't seem to care that Nancy is pretty or popular. They laugh, mockingly I think, at Nancy's friend Bess, who squeals at spiders. They prefer her other girlfriend George, the judo expert and computer whiz. They skip over the long descriptions of outfits and fashion accessories. According to Liana, they just want to get on with the story.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I'd like to believe that Liana's generation doesn't love Nancy Drew because she's a successful girl detective. They don't need to be reminded that girls can be (59) successful they know that. What these girls need and love are the stories themselves: (60) those exciting adventure tales spiced with mystery.

With its distinctive red tint and its polar ice caps, the planet Mars has fascinated humans for thousands of years. (61) There were ancient Babylonian astronomers who associated Mars with their war god Negral, to twentieth-century science fiction writers (62) whose works become best-sellers, this planet has often been a symbol of ill will and danger.

(63) The United States has competed with other countries to explore space. By 2003, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (64) would of sent thirty spacecraft to the red planet, (65) speculation has been prompted that a human voyage may no longer be the stuff of fiction. 

(66) Few would deny that the idea of a human mission to Mars is exciting, who is ready to pay for such an expedition?

Recent reports suggest that the cost of a human voyage to Mars could run as high as 100 billion dollars. This is a startling number, especially in light of the fact that the International Space Station, the most ambitious NASA project (67) yet, carried a projected price tag of "only" 17 billion dollars. In the end, NASA overspent on the International Space Station. [68] One can only imagine (69) if the final price of a human voyage to Mars would be.

In contrast, the two Mars Rovers (70) robotic spacecraft launched in 2003—carried a combined price tag of less than one billion dollars. These Rovers are sophisticated pieces of technology, with the (71) capacity and ability to examine soil and rocks. Their equipment may answer questions that have long been posed about the presence of water and life on Mars.

Sending machines unaccompanied by humans to Mars does drain some of the romance out of (72) aging or older visions of space travel. (73) In other words, we need to keep in mind that the right equipment can accomplish as much as any crew of scientists, if not more (74) -such as a fraction of the cost. Before any astronaut boards a spacecraft for that distant planet, the staggering expense of such a mission should be carefully considered. [75]