Personal Narrative: Growing Up As A Kid In Grade School

Growing up in a neighborhood right next to my grade school in Des Peres, I made some of the best friends I have had throughout my life. We lived in a neighborhood called Bayberry Hills and Thomas, who lived up the street, was one of the first friends I remember having as we went to preschool, kindergarten and grade school together. Just down the street from me, I had two other friends, Joseph and Charlie. Charlie being a few years younger than us had trouble keeping up in anything we would do but I would never replace the laughs and good times he gave us. We were inseparable, waking up early in the morning and rode bikes until we were allowed to play video games. We spent countless hours over the summer and after school clearing out sections

of the creek in our backyard to create forts. Thomas would wear a plain white t-shirt with black shorts and these real ugly looking shoes that he claims were “so comfortable” every single time. Never without his watch, he would come running down through the houses and before arriving he would run and jump off the side of a neighbors thick, gigantic tree. That was who he was and what he was like, a goofy guy that everybody liked. But something changed as we grew up.
Thomas became more and more interested in things that just weren’t appealing to the rest of the Bayberry crew and began to slowly drift away. It was gradual and almost unnoticeable because he would still hangout with us every once in a while but never as often as before. At this point, a few more guys from our school had joined our group and we spent the summers at each other's houses, riding bikes to get 50c drinks, and swimming in pools on scorching hot days. Going into high school, I was nervous about where the road ahead was going to take me as I was entering into a place where I did not know many people. None of my close friends joined me at SLUH but I stuck close to them and was with them whenever I had free time. This was when I started noticing that Thomas wasn’t at the night swimming we did at Daniels house or the hot nights playing video games in another friends basement. What I haven’t talked about is the separation that became so clear to me long after it had started. Growing up, Thomas was the last pick or close to the last pick in every physical game we would play and I think he just got tired of that and truly found something he liked.
He joined an extracurricular choir that would meet outside of our gradeschool and was made up of all different kids from all different schools.

But that new passion changed his interests, including his idea about his old friends. It never felt like we were pushing him away but rather that he was leaving us. But I am sure if it had been someone else who had found new interests we would have had a different response as a group but it wasn’t a different person. When you are a kid in grade school and even early highschool, you joke around and try to get the biggest laugh from your friends. These jokes between friends weren’t meant to start arguments or fights but instead to get a laugh. But what I didn’t realize was that the jokes we made with Thomas were driving him away. He became the guy on the receiving end for every joke that was

made.
I can remember instances that happened repeatedly. We were sitting on the brick wall at ten o’clock at night our sophomore year of highschool and while we were taking a break from street hockey and someone says,
“Thomas you fall over so easily.”
And another replies,
“Well he does plays, so…”
There was another time when we were just sitting at a table at Chick-fil-a and the male worker asked with a voice resembling a womans,
“Can I refresh your beverages?”
And someone said,
“Hey Thomas, that guy sounded gay. Do you know him?”
What makes me so mad is that the jokes were so easy to give yet so hard to take for him.

Joseph, Charlie and I lost that sense of companionship and friendship that we had at such an early age and tried to fix up our own ego without even thinking about the pain we were causing Thomas. He hung out with us less and less frequently and eventually became an alien to our friend group. He was the innocent victim and I played one part of the many who made up the monster.
The character of Antigone and every person selected in the draft from “The Lottery” are victimised unfairly by the popular belief and are the perfect examples of people turned into aliens in their own communities while not doing anything harmful to provoke the alienation.
Antigone went against the popular opinion and even authority in sticking up for what she thought her brother deserved when he was not in a position to defend himself and was ostracised because of it. Normally in times of distress it is common for the person who is selfish to be alienated and shunned from the group but in Antigone’s case, she was sacrificing for her brother. Is that really deserving of punishment? Creon says to her, “Polynices was a rebel and a traitor, and you know it.” But Antigone responds with, “He was my brother”(29). This exemplifies the point that even though he had many labels, whether they be true or not, the most important label was being her brother. And instead of joining the group of people that made up the monster, she

fought for the respect of her brother and was alienated because of it. She was different and that was what made her vital to the community. It did not make her lesser or greater than anyone yet Creon treated her as if she was lesser.
“The Lottery” has a similar dynamic in that someone is chosen each year at random to be sacrificed yet they are undeserving of the selection. They haven’t done anything to get their named called yet if they are chosen they are expected to pay the ultimate sacrifice, death. The town is a closely knitted community and when it comes time to do this horrible ceremony, they are quick to sell out one of their own for a personal gain. The towns people are so deeply blinded when it comes to this ceremony that when Delacroix says that some people in another town are “talkin’ of givin’ up the Lottery”, the response that Mr. Warner gives is “Pack of crazy folks!”(22). They are oblivious to the fact that maybe they are the crazy ones who are stoning human beings to death. The only character who seems awake to the fact of the madness is the victim, Tessie. She says, “It isn’t fair! It wasn’t done fair!”(25), after she had been selected as the sacrifice but does it really take a person that long to come to the realization that this just isn’t right?
Another example of someone who is unjustly turned into an alien within their own family is Joseph from the bible. In no way did he ever make a direct decision to isolate himself from his family but rather he was just chosen. He was innocently victimised by his own brothers and punished for no apparent reason other than jealousy.
It seems as if no one can quite understand the unjust alienation that is taking place until they themselves are the victim. Levels of sympathy are not attained until one feels for themselves just what it is like. Tessie felt the unjustness too late and died because of it. But the story of Thomas is not like Tessie’s because even if the towns people felt regret, there was no way to bring her back. Although Thomas’ appearances faded during those hard times, I never felt like he wasn’t a friend anymore. Thomas related much more to Antigone or Joseph because even though he was secluded and isolated from the group, he stayed true to himself and worked his way back, gaining our respect that never should have been lost. He was standing up to the so called authority by ignoring the jokes and putting himself in a different environment. I find it heroic what he did. He never let the jokes get to him and instead of trying to change what he had interests in, he changed who he wanted to be around. Nowadays, I see him almost every weekend. I think as I have matured I have come to the realization what why be a Creon, one of Joseph's brothers, or one of the townspeople in “The Lottery?” All of those characters are associated with selfishness and I have learned that life is so much better when you are living for other people. Sure things have changed in our relationship but I still see him as that one true friend I had growing up.