Orval and Jerry Reminisce On a memorable day for Jerry, when Virginia leaves to go down and get something to eat, Jerry and his dad reminisce. It is a conversation that Jerry will never forget. Also present are Sue and Kathleen. Among the memories discussed are the following: Orval asks Jerry to look outside the window and tell him what he sees. Jerry answers that he sees the Illinois Power Co. to which Orval reply’s, “Do you realize that I sent 34 years of my life in the second floor of that building. It was a good job.” He then begins to talk of his love for his father-in-law, Jerry Flynn. Orval remembers how, when he was young, he loved to imitate Grandpa Flynn’s Irish brogue and mannerism. But most of all, he talks about the good …show more content…
Orval answers that he remembers it. He says that it was an old vegetable delivery truck owned by Frank Pope, a friend of the Flynn family. Orval then adds that he had set up the picnic and that he always sort of blamed himself for the fact that Frank Pope’s son got sick that day, developed polio, and had to spend months in an iron lung and being crippled for life. At a time when we did not own a car Jerry brings up another memory as a young kid. Leaving Uncle Frank Young’s house late at night over the Christmas holidays, we took a taxi all the way from St. Louis to our house in Belleville. In an amazing display, Orval not only remembers the incident, but how much he had to pay the taxi driver. Jerry then questions his dad on whether he remembers the infamous night at the end of his senior in high school when the police came to the house about 2:00 in the morning. Jerry was taken to the police station for questioning about several acts of minor vandalism which included lifting a man’s Volkswagen Beetle onto his front porch. Jerry comments how he has always been surprised that Orval never got angry or punished him for it. Orval answers that he remembers it because he had to go down to the police station the next morning with the other fathers and meet with the chief of police. He adds “the young in every generation don’t seem to change very
Kooser begins his tribute to his father by acknowledging that his father was a tremendously loving and caring man that worked hard to support his family. Ever “since I entered my fifties, I have begun to see my father’s hands out at the end” of mine waiting for my help. He has provided everything Kooser needed to
After being drafted, a lot of ideas and thoughts came to his mind. O’Brien thought about what will do if he goes war and how his life will be after if he srvral. For example, “I imag...
Paul hasn’t written in a long time because he’s been busy with soccer games, football games, school, and cross-curricular projects. During that time, his father is now firmly in command as the Director of Civil Engineering for Tangerine County, and his mother now the head of the Architectural Committee, a block captain for the Neighborhood Watch patrol, and mostly like to be the successor to Mr. Costello as president of the Homeowners’ Association. His brother, Erik, has now become a local hero as the placekicker for Lake Windsor High Seagulls.
Like many of us, he did not come to the full realization of his dad’s influence and integrity until after his death. His dad’s diligence toward success with a fledgling start-up business in a new industry was a good example to Beckett and influenced him throughout his life as he started other companies. He remembered how his father cared for his employees. As the economy shifted during wartime, his dad shifted from his original business to something very different just to keep him and his employees working to care for their families. Beckett had been mentored and was his dad’s understudy, which seemingly grew into his own passion for caring for his own employees (Beckett, 2006, p 23-24,
In this memoir, James gives the reader a view into his and his mother's past, and how truly similar they were. Throughout his life, he showed the reader that there were monumental events that impacted his life forever, even if he
The characterization of nature is detrimental in shift of 20th century modernist writing to impressionist truths of Canadian landscapes. Al Purdy and Archibald Lampman were two significant Canadian writers who both possessed similar impressionist ideals on Canada’s nature. Both Purdy’s “Trees of the Arctic Circle” and Lampman’s “Heat” display not only negative judgments on Canadian landscape but demonstrate a shift from a frustrated outlook to an appreciative perception on nature.
Then, one day, the usually-mad and explosive Jerry found a justified reason to be mad: a check got bounced from his account, literally the first time that happened in his life. What could it be? He felt it awfully suspicious so he hired an auditor to go through all of his accounts and
In 2010 author Andre Dubus III had an excerpt published called “My Father Was a Writer”. The author writes about how his father who was a Marine and how life was as a military family. Eventually the stresses of being a Marine took its toll on the relationship between his father and the family. In 1963, the author’s grandfather passed away and not long after his father retired from The Marines and traveled down a new path and was accepted into Iowa Writers’ Workshop. As time went by the father’s life began to change. From hugging and kissing his wife to letting his appearance change from clean cut and shaved to growing his hair and having a mustache. Showing the author and his siblings more attention from sitting with them at night just to tell
In this article “ The Old Man isn’t There Anymore” Kellie Schmitt writes about the people she lives with crying in the hallway and when she asks what happened she is told that the old man is gone. This starts the big ordeal of a Chinese funeral that Schmitt learns she knows nothing about. Schmitt confuses the reader in the beginning of the story, as well as pulling in the reader's emotions, and finishes with a twist.
Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came across a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift in the sill. Tom and Daisy were sitting across from one another at the kitchen table. They were engaged in a conversation.
But most importantly, is his love of purity. Like when he was about to throw a snowball at a car and hydrant but didn’t. “The snowball was very good for packing. I didn’t throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it at a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too.
Robert Olden Butler was born in 1944 and grew up in the small steel mill town of Granite City, Illinois. (Butler 526) He was the only child father who was a retired actor and former chairperson of the theater department at St. Louis University, and a mother who was a retired executive secretary? (Layman 4) In a 1993 interview, Butler said "It was second nature for us to talk late into the night about books, movies, and theater." (Stowers 202) After completing grade school, Butler attended Granite City High School where he became class president and co-valedictorian in 1963. Butler attended Northwestern University and graduated suma cum loude in 1967. Once completing graduate school with an MFA in play righting Butler suspected he would be drafted into the military.
“…And aside from being a force of nature, he’s a pretty good guy.” As said by Robert Parker, introducer of speakers at a benefit, Voices Louder Than Words, at Harvard. (P.R. 1 Pg. 161)
First, policemen showed up at Alex’s home to tell him that his uncle died in a car crash. He knew he was about to receive bad news by “the way the police stood there” (Horowitz 2). Alex always knew his uncle to be a safe driver, so when
As a result of the newfound friendship between Marjorie and Bernice and Bernice’s striking “one liners”, Bernice receives more attention from men at dances. Throughout the first dance with her new persona, Bernice engages in conversations with men and asks their opinion of bobbed hair. She proceeds to inform them of her decision “that early next week (she’s) going down to the Sevier Hotel barbershop, (sitting) in the first chair, and (getting her) hair bobbed” and will be “charging admission” (250). This line sparks the attention of several men such as Charley Paulson and G. Reece Stoddard. Moreover, Bernice’s witty remarks result in her “being cut in on several times in the past five minutes” and even “Charley Paulson (heading) for her with