A Walk in the Park
My father and I were resting comfortably on our downstairs sofa riveted to the T.V. The climax of the latest Star Trek episode was just beginning to unfold. As the show cut for a commercial break my father turned to me and asked if I had removed the air conditioner from my upstairs, bedroom window. In our house I had a fall ritual involving air conditioning unit removal from the window and subsequent storage of said monstrosity in the closet. My younger brother, a hulking high school football linebacker, had a corresponding ritual of placing the air conditioning unit in the window the following spring. I hated removing this hulking piece of metal from my window because it was heavy and dirty. Each annual removal operation usually meant sore, scraped arms and liberal amounts of coolant oil on my designer jeans.
"I'll take it out after the show is over" I replied to my dad. Unfortunately this did not bring the closure I had expected. My father, angered that I had left this task to the final days of fall (still within the required timeline in my mind) insisted the job be done immediately. Like now.
This made the whole ordeal more aggravating to me. Not only was I to suffer abuse at the hands of this air conditioner but I would miss the end of my show too.
I climbed upstairs, seething with a rage mixed with adolescent hormones and self pity. I reached my bedroom, threw back the drapes, approached the window from where the air conditioner was perched and jerked open the window. To my horror, the air conditioner tumbled backwards out the window, end over end and landed squarely on the roof of my fathers two day old Buick. The Buick roof crumpled like a piece of paper. Meanwhile, the air conditioner had bounced off the car and landed sharply on our paved driveway. The whole incident took no more than a few seconds and yet my mind played it back in horrific, slow motion. I surveyed the scene. My dad's Buick looked like somebody had taken a sledge hammer and swung a lethal blow to its middle. The air conditioner lay in a heap of scrap metal beside the car.
I reflected on my next move. I had waded into my fair share of trouble before and had come up with many ingenious cover ups some of which still remain a secret to this day.
By traveling far from home and risking his life to learn about his father, Telemakhos is forced to mature at a tremendous rate. He learns more from his trip than he could have by staying at home with the suitors. From Nestor and Menelaos he learns courage, bravery, and how to be both a man and a host. He learns that he must fight against what the suitors represent, to stop them from claiming what is his.
Webster, Michael. “Greek History and the Gods.” Grand Valley State University. Web. 15 Dec. 2009 .
It is important to note that the Iliad is originally a poem told by many bards and storytellers; by using similes, Homer compliments the spoken word of the Iliad with a visual component. In certain scenes, Homer utilizes similes in the Greeks’ favor, elevating their battle prowess in comparison to the Trojans. Presented to a primarily Greek audience, Homer’s particularity in bolstering the Greek army plays to the bias of the audience––augmenting the atmosphere of the crowd. The implementation of similes throughout the epic is vital to the poem as it provides the Greek audience with a brief respite from the practically nonstop gore of
“August 2000, our family of six was on the way to a wedding. It was a rainy day, and Gregg was not familiar with the area. The car hit standing water in the high-way, and started hydro-planing. Greg lost control of the car. Then, the car went backwards down into a ditch and started sliding on its wheels sideways. After sliding for 100 feet or so, the car flipped, at least once. After flipping, the car came to rest on its wheels, and the passenger window broke out.
The Greek civilization has brought a wide-range of intellect and visionary philosophies over time. Over a long period, new theories and arts began to embellish. One great art that came about and flourished is Homer’s novel, The Iliad. Throughout this classic novel, Homer emphasized the Greek God’s values through their actions and morals which contributed to their courageous and prideful attributes. In Greek literature, the heroes Hector and Achilles reflect the core values of honor, warfare dexterity, and pride.
.../blower unit so buyers will be forced to purchase the blanket at a marked up price.
Then the accident happened and my perspective changed. I heard a scream. My sister yelled “HELP!!” I watched as what was happening was moving by me speedily, not waiting for me to catch up. It all happened in a blur as I ran out to see what happened. My brother had jumped out in front of the skid steer while it was rolling down the hill. His leg had become wedged between the van at the bottom of the hill and the skid steer fork. There was blood everywhere. My dad was not home. He was at work so he could not come right away. My mom had to move the big van
Do you know how many citizens in the United States have air conditioning units in their homes?
The tales of Greek heroes and the gods are older than all of us. Most of these tales are thought to be myths, but every interpretation of Greek mythology and the stories that it contains correlates with something in the real world today. The story of the creation of the world, and the stories of the heroes Hercules, Perseus and Theseus, are only but a few of the compelling stories Greek mythology has to offer.
“ Well of course, ” answered my father, “It’ll just be like I’m out of town for a very long time. Y’all will see me every other weekend.”
...than to explain and educate a customer about the operation of the evaporative emission control system and why it is not working in the car, but no one wants to hear any of that. We are also not salesman.
With music blasting, voices singing and talking, it was another typical ride to school with my sister. Because of our belated departure, I went fast, too fast. We started down the first road to our destination. This road is about three miles long and filled with little hills. As we broke the top of one of the small, blind hills in the middle of the right lane was a dead deer. Without any thought, purely by instinct I pulled the wheel of the car to the left and back over to the right. No big deal but I was going fast. The car swerved back to the left, to the right, to the left. Each time I could feel the car scratching the earth with its side. My body jolted with the sporadic movements of the car. The car swerved to the right for the last time. With my eyes sealed tight, I could feel my body float off the seat of the car.
The Iliad is a classic epic poem written by Homer about the Trojan War and the rage of an Achaean warrior, Achilles. The book introduces the reader to the war and the personal battle between Achilles and King Agamemnon; because of this argument between these two major characters, Homer introduces the role of the gods when Achilles asks his mother, Thetis, to go to Zeus and beg for his interference on Achilles’ behalf. The major role the gods play in the Iliad is their interference in the Trojan War as immortal versus immortal and mortal versus immortal.
To begin with, the ancient Greeks explained the creation of the universe, in particular the Earth and its elements, by a system of anthropomorphism in which their gods are human-like and are representatives of these elements. For example, Zeus is the god of heaven while Hades is the underworld lord (Hesiod, p.145). Unlike the Christians’ god who is “flawless”, the ancient Greeks’ divinities are portrayed as humans and are far from perfect. Their gods behave like ordinary people except they are immortal and have supernatural powers. Like any human being, the Greeks’ gods have love, jealousy, sadness, etc. For instance, in Euripides’ Bacchae, Zeus falls in love with Semele, which makes Hera becomes jealous and tries to kill Semele and Dionysus (Euripides, p.209). The Greeks even have a physically imperfect god, Hephaestus. This is to say that the gods’ attitude toward mortals is affected by how people treat them as the Greeks’ gods have emotions like humans.
Oedipus was a victime of fate, his futur was foretold by an Oracle, he had no way of knowing that his wife was his mother nor that the stranger he killed was his father. Oedipus could not prevent his own downfall. Oedipus was the king of Thebes, he became king when he cured the city of a deadly plague. He cured the plague by solving the riddle of the mythical creature, the Sphinkx. Now the city is suffering from another plague and as king Oedipus must solve the riddle of this one.