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An armored car carrying mob money was crippled and robbed in front of my house in Oak Park, Illinois, when I was about two years old.
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The Irish Clan na Gael and the German Bund were both in business in Chicago and in other American cities in 1939.
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German submarines were running up and down along the East Coast all through World War II. (Among the people I interviewed as I wrote the story was a former U-boat crewman living near my town in Florida.) And the Germans did put spies ashore.
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An American destroyer, USS Schenck, was in the bay off Eastport, some of its crew enjoying the 4th of July holiday on shore, at the time my story puts the ship there.
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A huge whirlpool exists off Eastport, Maine – so famous that you can go to the web (“Old Sow Survivors Association”) and see a picture of it.
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There was an explosion at the British exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.
RUN FOR IT! weaves together fact and fantasy -- fiction as I like to write it. I hope readers will enjoy the historical side of this coming-of-age adventure as well as the fantasy involved.