Summary

In “Prologue,” Woodrow Wilson Nickel (Woody) died at the age of 105, and the VA hospital liaison found Woodrow Wilson Nickel’s footlocker “full of ruled writing pads, dozens of them, stacked in bundles” (1). She began to read.

The newspaper clippings before Chapter 1 detail the amazing story of the two giraffes that survive the violent hurricane.

In the convalescent home scene prior to Chapter 1, Woody resolves to tell his most vivid memory that “is always with me, always alive, always within reach” (4).

In “New York Harbor,” Woody survived the hurricane of 1938 that “was the stuff of legend,” it devastated the city and killed his boss and only living relative, Cuz (5). While he sat “pure miserable” on the docks, he “saw the giraffes” that had nearly drowned in the storm (8). A man who Woody nicknamed “the Old Man” arrived in a “truck with a wooden...