Franklyn

            The day I turned sixteen I expected a fun new car out in the drive way with a giant bow on it. I got no such wonderful surprise when I woke up on that March morning. Unfortunately.  Very Unfortunately. I drove my sisters car around that day. This was the car that we had both learned on, but she put it through a lot more than I ever did. See my sister had a habit of parking this car. Into stationary objects. She and her friends put a lot of wear and tear on that old Toyota Rav 4.

            Now you see a Rav 4 is a perfectly respectable car. It gets good gas mileage, is a nice size, and would suit most people’s needs very well. I, however, am not most people. I am a car person for one. I love cars. I enjoy looking at cars, reading about cars and driving fun cars. I also have very specific options on the different automotives that people drive, and like a stubborn Texan, I am set in my opinions.

            I drove all through my sophomore and junior years of high school in that green mediocre car. Because that is exactly all that it was: mediocre. Driving around town with my mother was, I’m sure, torture for her. Every car that I would even consider driving I would point out to her, and let her know that I really liked it. This mostly consisted of trucks and sports cars. Unfortunately, my mom reverted to her Yankee upbringing and refused to buy me a truck. She also said that if I get a sports car, I would kill myself. I really had no argument on that second one. I did point out one car that she didn’t have much of a problem with. It was not a practical car, but it was a very safe car which was important to her. It was nice and big, and practical. It would have very low maintenance when it got older as I graduated college and started paying for more things on my own. I had picked out an electric blue FJ Cruiser.

            One morning the summer before my senior year, my mom told me that we could go LOOK at cars. She emphasized over and over that we were only going to look. There was no way that we were going to buy a car today. We had several other dealerships to visit. WE WERE NOT BUYING A CAR TODAY! “Okay, okay, we aren’t buying a car. I got it mom.” We walked on to the lot, and of course were ignored. We looked at a lot of the FJs and none of them have what I was looking for. They were new cars, but had thousands of miles on them already. None of them were blue, and all of them were automatic. After looking around the whole lot, we finally spotted one blue one over in the used car lot and decide to meander over and take a gander.

            There it was. That was my car. Sitting in the middle of the used car lot, it was the last of the cars that they had bought from another dealer. The odometer read a whopping 22 miles on it.  It was only left because most of America is too lazy to buy a car with a standard transmission. It had every single thing I wanted, from the racks to the wheels. This was my car. And it was a third of the price of all of the new cars we had looked at.

            Well my mom went back on her word, and we traded in my sisters green mediocre car for Frank. His name is Frank the Tank. In family settings he is Franklyn. 

The Cask of Amontillado

The Cask of Amontillado was the only story in the class that I had read before. This made it interesting because the first time I read this story I was no where close to being a sophisticated reader. I think it was somewhere in junior high when I first read this story, but it went way over my head. I did not understand much of what was going on, and didn't know what to think of the story when it was done. Looking back on my second reading of the story, I realize how much more I absorbed while reading this time around. I understood better what was happening, and why Fortunato was killed. The first time I hardly even realized that he was murdered, never to be found again. I was more focused on the reasoning and the thought processes than the fact that it was all happening while there was a big party going on outside. 

            Montresor is very cunning in his plan, and the reader can tell that the idea is well thought out. The timing is obviously thought out, since Poe tells about it. The carnival distracts people from what is going, people are not reliable and somebody wont be missed immediately on a night like tonight. Montresor knows what to tell people to make them do what he wants. Although this is evident with his manipulation of Fotunato, it is much more evident with the servants at Montresor’s house. He knew that by telling them he wouldn’t be home during a big event, that they would leave. This shows his deep perception about human nature. Poe really understands how people work and what makes them do certain things. This is evident in his stories, and to me, is one of the reasons why they are so highly disturbing.

           

Edgar Allan Poe is an excellent author of short stories in my opinion, but he is a little to dark for my preference. I really like how he understands the psyche and what gets to a person.

Finally, I leave you with Mister Edgar Allen Bro.

Fathers and Sons

            After reading so much Ernest Hemmingway this semester, I think that the one story that best illustrates the Nick Adams stories is Fathers and Sons. This story illustrates the struggles that Nick had growing up. These struggles he had as a child did not leave him when he became an adult. They only changed. His struggles with his father were translated into the struggles that he had with his own son, trying to be a good father.

            Nick does not know what to do to be a good father, but he does try to do a better job than his father. When his son is curious about his grandfather, Nick fibs about what kind of man he was. He wants his son to have a good image of his grandfather, and not the same image that Nick has.

            The reminisce in the middle of the story is a very interesting change. It does not particularly make sense to the rest of the story. Nick is driving through the area where he grew up and is thinking back on it. It is interesting because most of the story is about the role of fatherhood, but the flashback does not touch much on fatherhood, but rather maturation. The flashback pairs well with the story before it however, Cross-Country Snow. The two stories deal with Nick growing up and learning about life. Perhaps Cross-Country Snow is why Hemmingway put that particular memory of Nick’s in Fathers and Sons. Since he linked two stories together often, the similar memories in each story would help to link them.

            Doing what is right by our children is a big part of human nature. People are always struggling with how to raise their own children better than their parents. I think that more often that not, ones parenting skills are no better or worse than that of their own parents. They are only different methods. There is no one perfect way to raise a child, and as Nick is learning in Fathers and Sons, you can only do what you think is best for your own children. 

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wall-Paper was one of the stories this semester that had the biggest impact on me the semester. Much like the public when it was published, this story was shocking. I did not expect it to be so vivid or detailed. This story transports you into the narrators mind. Since it is written in almost a diary format, you feel that you know exactly what the narrator is thinking. If it was told in first person, this would result in an entirely different story than the one that Charlotte Perkins Gilman told.

One of the biggest parts of the story for me is the subsections. This illustrates the worsening of the nervous disorder. As each section is read, you feel for the narrator and feel how she is going insane locked up in the room.

I think the fact that the description of the room is very important to the story. I know that I have seen wallpaper before, that has foil or something else in it, that makes it appear that it moves. This is very disconcerting, particularly when I was a child. Wallpaper is not supposed to move at all. I can understand how the narrator would be very disconcerted with the wallpaper after being locked in the room all day with nothing to do but stare at the wallpaper.

            The story made a big impact on me since it really transports you there and you feel like you are just as bad as the narrator. The shockingness of it plays a very big role in it as well. As a very hyperactive person, I can understand how much worse I would get if a doctor had prescribed me the rest cure. Even if there was nothing wrong with me in the beginning, I feel that after the rest cure, I would have gone crazy as well. 

9/11

The biggest event so far in the lives of my generation was 9/11. This is the day that we will always remember what we were doing. Much like Pearl Harbor, or man walking on the moon for future generations, 9/11 is what will be forever imprinted on the minds of our generation. I was in 5^th grade in 2001. My parents drove me to school that day like any other day. When I got to school, my teachers were all acting very strange. They kept leaving and going into the halls, talking to each other, and more or less doing no teaching what so ever. In my English class, three of the 5^th grade teachers were in a corner of the room listening to the radio very quietly.

None of our teachers were allowed to tell us what was going on. When discussing this day with my contemporaries, I realized that this is not what happened in most schools. For most of my friends, their parents came and picked them up from school or school was cancelled all together. Teachers were much more upfront with them than my teachers were.

Walking out of the school, across the fields I was still carefree and happy. I did not realize anything in the world was different until I walked outside of the fence and spotted my mom’s car. Now this was not strange. My mom picked me up from school every day. No, the strange part was that my dad was sitting in the passenger seat. On that day, I could not remember another day when my dad had picked me up from school spontaneously. Occasionally he did, but I always knew about it before I left for school that morning. Mom would remind me that my dad was picking me up from school, and to be patient if he forgot and was running late. It was after I got into the solemn car that my parents told me what happened. I did not understand the true consequences of that day until I had grown many years older though. 

The imaginarium

            Growing up, my backyard was pretty legit for the suburbs. It was a big hill that ended in a fence and then a small lake. This meant that you can run up and down the hill, and then when you are tired, its time to go fishing, right out of the backyard! My dad and I had a garden in our side yard, where we grew a bunch of delicious vegetables that I didn’t eat. I was a very picky eater when I was a little kid. Eventually though, my mother decided to redo our backyard, and completely ruin it for my childhood games. The terrace she added prevented me and my sister getting in our wagon and riding down and slamming into the fence at the bottom. The fountain in the middle made any further football or soccer games impossible. Even my dad’s garden that we spend so much time on was banished since it was not aesthetically appealing enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother and she has excellent taste. The unfortunate part of this is that children do not care much about taste.

            There was one very positive benefit for me during this landscaping. When I came home from school, there was a giant pile of dirt in my backyard that stayed there for about a month. I would run up and down this huge pile of dirt and have the time of my life. I would get home from school, put on my cowboy boots, and go explore and see what had changed. The dirt came from digging up our yard, so as a result I found a plethora of lost treasures. I found a house key, many fun sticks that could be used for imaginary games, lots of “cool” rocks to put on display in my bedroom and even an arrowhead.

Looking back now, this pile of dirt was probably only slightly taller than I was at the time. That didn’t matter to me though. This was my imaginary wonderland. It was a battle field and a castle. It was a cave and a mountain. It was anything and everything that my young mind could imagine. 

Latest Meeting

At our last meeting, My conversation partner and I met outside for a short and sweet conversation. It was just before Thanksgiving, so we talked about holiday traditions with our respective countries. I asked her if they had Halloween where she was from. She responded that they had Halloween, but nowhere near to the extent that we have it. People will have small decorations on their houses, but that is about the extent of it. Children do not dress up and go door to door asking for sweets from total strangers. The most interesting part of this was when she explained the most likely reason why this was. She said that in her country, the streets are not safe enough for children to be out wandering at night, even accompanied by a parent.

            At first my reaction to this was how is that possible. What kind of country would one live in where you can’t walk down the street at night with your children. Then I took a second and rethought the whole thing. I realized that there are neighborhoods in our cities now that are like that. I think of Halloween in my neighborhood at home. Carloads of kids are trucked in to trick or treat in better neighborhoods. I thought of the places where some of my classmates from high school grew up. Not all of our neighborhoods in America are like those where me and the majority of other TCU students grew up in. Many are unsafe and dangerous. Sometimes all it takes is a little perspective on what the truth really is to realize what a person is saying and where they are from. If you look at things from another angle, sometimes you can find a whole other side to the story.