The men in the family (revised memoir)

Like father like son, I hear this statement all the time from my friends and family. People say that my dad and I are almost exactly the same person, besides the fact my dad is way shorter than me (about five inches) and almost instantly has a five o clock shadow right after he shaves, and his hair still consists of that wavy style from back in the eighties and nineties that he will never let go of. Before writing this I wouldn’t have just laughed it off and agreed with them not knowing with what I was truly agreeing with. I don’t know to take this as a compliment or as an insult, I like to view it as a compliment. But they are right my dad and I are much alike, in fact all the men in our family are very much alike. I just cant seem to accept that, I want to be my own individual, I want others to think of me as someone different than my dad, not to say that my dad is a bad person, its just that I want my own identity, but when I tried to think about traits and characteristics that I have that my dad doesn’t, it was very difficult. The more and more I realize it, I am my father, just a lot taller, and the more and more I think about it I accept the fact and welcome it, because it was him who made me the person I am today. The only thing different between my dad and I, is that I am a way more calm person then he ever is or will be, I can thank my mom for that. My mom reminds me of this every day, that’s one thing she wishes he would be better at. I am a more of the go with the flow and is ready for whatever type person, and he is the lets stick to the plan and it needs to go that way type of person and if it doesn’t he is a nervous wreck. Both of us have ADHD, but I am the only one who will admit to it and is diagnosed with it, every now and then he will admit to it but he will never in his lifetime go to the doctor and get tested for it, I accept things for what that are a lot easier and faster than he does.

My dad is always worried (shown by his sprouts of grey hair here and there) about making other people happy and making sure that they are having a good time, this is one trait that I am glad that he passed onto me. It makes me feel good to make other people laugh and be happy, so I try to do it everywhere I go. I have always wondered if my friends think about me the same way my dad’s friends think about him. Sometimes my dad can be a little bit to much to handle, he always wants to be in control and make sure things go as planned. He is known as the one to have a good time, which fits his personality perfectly. His friends always joke with him and give him a hard time because they know they can get under his skin really easy and get him all mad and defensive, but that’s what friends are for right? My dad is a source of a lot of peoples entertainment, at his expense that is. He’s notorious for getting your name wrong, the whole Castner family is known for this actually, but my dad has seem to master this trade very well. He will say five different names before he actually gets it right, its one of the funniest things to witness, his friends make fun of him for it all the time. He doesn’t do it all the time just when he has something exciting to say or he is in a rush. They also give my dad a hard time for being extremely nervous. Which is very true, my dad is very antsy person and very nervous at times, actually most of the time. He has a nervous habit, which he so graciously passed down to me, of biting his nails when he is either board or nervous. He never needs to use fingernail clippers on them because he bites them so much, they're actually nubs most of the time. The fingernail stops right where it meets the end of the finger. My mom gets so mad when she catches him doing this because she says it’s disgusting because he spits them on the floor when he is done, which I have to agree with but I can’t harp on him to much for that because I do it as well.

Most of my funny and energetic characteristics come from my dad, another trait that I am glad he passed on to me, but this is also why him and I but heads and argue all the time. We are both the same person but I’m more on the calm relaxed side then he is and I get that from my mom. She is the quiet sensitive loving type, who is always telling everyone I love you all the time. She also always seems to be the one always to walk in while me and my dad are wrestling, to yell stop it your going to break the furniture, as if she cared more about the furniture then us getting hurt, but we just play it off like she never even said anything and just keep fighting till the other one gets hurt and she just storms out of the room. I don’t really think you would consider what we do wresting, more like putting each other in headlocks and other types of submissions until the other one gives up, my dad so maturely taking my hand and making me hit myself and saying “Stop hitting yourself dumbass.” He is the one that usually wins though I’m just the one that always starts the fight with the question “Want to fight?” and he replies with “Ya, Join the army.” thinking he’s so funny. One time he had to go to the doctor because I hurt his wrist really bad from wrestling, the doctor told him he was going to need surgery if he didn’t stop wrestling with me and let it heal. Both my dad and I are really competitive towards each other, and I don’t mean just like a father son competitive I mean like a competitive attitude you would have towards your friends or rival team, we are always talking about who is better at what and who can do more of what, I get this strong competitive nature from him and I am glad I did because it has helped me a lot when it came to sports. We are always playing one on one basketball, and he loves to cheat at that because he hates losing as much as I do. One time my friends and I were playing outside on my hoop in the front yard, so he decided to come out and play with us making it three on three, at the end of the game my friends decide it would be a good idea for my dad and I to play one on one. They know about the competitive attitude between the two of us and that we would agree and it would be a very entertaining game to watch. This game comes up so often with my friends and I because they actually witnessed how competitive my dad and I truly are and how much of a funny thing it was to witnesses it. I almost broke my fingers in that game, blocking his shot of course, because I was so determined to win. For an old man my dad can still move rather quickly, even though he might complain about it later if I beat him and use it as an excuse of why he lost. My mom is the completely opposite of my dad, like they always say, opposites attract. She shows much more affection then my dad does, it must be a girl thing. My dad and I show our affection by wrestling each other and punching each other, you know manly things. She gets her loving and caring since of humor from my grandpa, the other man in the family.

My grandpa is a very nice person, that is when he wants to be. He is very off and on when it comes to being nice, usually my mom has to make him feel bad about it before he is nice to her. My grandpa plays the role of the big mystery or big myth of the family. The stories he tells are something that could be strait out of a movie or book. For instance, he has had five different wives’s who have all been assassinated, or that he worked in the black market for the army. My favorite story that he tells all the time was when he was in college. I forget the college now, in fact he actually never gives the little details about the stories he tells, but he was a photographer at the time and he was up in the photographer’s booth and all of the sudden all of the football players took him down and huddled around him, tore off his cloths, put pads, and a uniform on him. They put him in the game as a quarterback because the starting quarterback got hurt, so they put him in and he threw a sixty yard pass to win the game. He said that they saw him throw a football during practice one time and knew that he had a good arm. Another story that he tells all the time is one when he was in the war. During WWII he and another soldier were walking pass a house that was bombed and there was nothing left but a door and a basement. They walk in the door and there sits a mother and a daughter who have been living in this blown up house with nothing to eat or sleep on. So my grandpa reaches in his boot and hands the mother a piece of paper that was worth a million dollars, I can't exactly remember where he got that money from or why he had it, but it was something involving a top secret mission of course.

Why does my grandpa tell these extravagant stories, maybe because he wants to entertain or maybe he wants to be viewed as the awesome grandpa? It's not so much that these stories are a hundred percent made up but they are more or less real events that have happen to him to some extent, just blown out of proportion with many added details. I think it is mainly because he doesn’t want us to view him as a boring person who has led an uneventful life. Now don't get me wrong my grandpa has had some amazing things happen in his life time and has visited many extravagant places, but he drowns them out with all these stories he tells. My mom has wondered about these stories for a long time and which ones and how much of them are true. She finally decided to talk to his sister who lives in Chicago and ask her all about them and get the facts strait. She found out that most of them are false to a certain extent, but a part of me still believes them anyways, just because its fun to. Every time we visit him, he is usually ready with a new story that has nothing to do with what we are talking about at the time, he just loves to hear himself talk. Every time you start talking about yourself or talking about something that has happened to you, he has always somehow done the same thing just better then you, once again proving my theory that he wants everyone to know that he too has done awesome things in his life and that we are not the only ones who have done interesting things.

To get a better idea of what is going on in my grandpas head I decided to write what it would be like in his head and what he is thinking when he tells these stories. When we start telling him about something we are excited about he just sits there and listens for the main subject and not paying attention to the details. His brain then just starts firing off ideas of past memories that have happen to him or has happen to someone else. He then thinks, hey I need to let them know that I too have had something like this happen to me too, but I don’t want to make it seem boring so I’ll add extra details here and there to it. He then starts telling his story and its sounding so boring in his head that he is afraid that we are getting board too, so he just keeps adding more and more extravagant things to the story till its unbelievable. Not knowing that he just made something that was about us now turn into something about him, and then when is finished telling the story he thinks checkmate, as if he just toped our story.

I don’t want to go as far as saying that my grandpa has Alzheimer’s, but I wouldn’t feel bad about saying he has characteristics of Alzheimer’s, things like memory dementia, and forgetfulness. I hate to view my grandpa in this way because I know how strong he is and what kind of person he really was because of the stories of things he really did that my mom has told me, and it takes away from his image when you start talking about Alzheimer’s. In Time magazine Ray Chhetri, a café partron and a nurse-manager at a Hospital says “Looking after a dementia patient is hard work, a living bereavement.” That statement couldn’t be truer too, because I have witnessed firsthand of how hard this can be with my grandpa. My grandpa’s knees have been hurting him for quite some time now, so finally a couple of years ago he decided to get surgery on them. The surgery went really well, it’s the aftermath that was the hard part. My grandpa was a totally different person, he went in the surgery really energetic and came out almost like a zombie, he was acting exactly how a person with Alzheimer’s would. I’m actually getting goose bumps just thinking about it. My relationship between me and my grandpa was good but not as good or as loving as I would have liked it to be and it was this particular moment that made my weak relationship with him become stronger, because I realized that he is old and he could be gone in a second and that he is no longer the strong independent grandpa I use to view him as when I was little. He basically went crazy, he wasn’t acting like his normal self. We had to put him into one of those places where they look after him and take care of him because he wasn’t allowed to go home by himself, this was hard on my mom and the family as well, it was something completely new to us. It was then that I realized that my very independent grandpa was not so independent and needed our help, whether he wanted it or not. Every time we visited him he would try to get us to help him “escape," he would tell us to have the car running in the front and he would get his things together and we would make a run for it, every time my mom somehow managed to change the subject and get him going on something else. Of course it wouldn’t be grandpa if he didn’t come out of there with some stories to tell, like how the nurses were hitting on him and they were giving him medicine that made it so that he wasn’t getting any better. It was weird because after a month or so after all this had happened it was as if he slipped out of it and became normal again. It was a scary moment in my life because I thought I was about to lose him and never be able to have a normal conversation with him again, even if it was all about him or consisted of fairytale stories.


Hildebrand by Hilaire Belloc

Who was frightened by a Passing Motor, and was brought to Reason

"Oh murder! What was that, Papa!"
"My child, It was a Motor-Car,
A most Ingenious Toy!
Designed to Captivate and Charm
Much rather than to rouse Alarm
In any English Boy.

"What would your Great Grandfather who
Was Aide-de-Camp to General Brue,
And lost a leg at Waterloo,
And Quatre-Bras and Ligny too!
And died at Trafalgar!-
What would he have remarked to hear
His Young Descendant shriek with fear,
Because he happened to be near
A Harmless Motor-Car!
But do not fret about it! Come!
We'll off to Town
And purchase some!"

In this poem there is only a part that corresponds and makes me think about my grandpa and it actually gave me a much clearer picture of my grandpa and made me think about him in a different way. The second stanza where Belloc talks about how many extravagant things her grandpa has done but when it comes down to it, he is just a normal person like you and me. When this harmless car comes close to him it shows his true colors and he gets scared, displaying that even though he may have went through all these heart wrenching experiences he is still vulnerable and scared, and maybe that’s why he tells these stories, to hide these true feelings from everyone else.

Memoir

In my family, everyone has their own little roles they play. My sister is the peacekeeper, the one who is always making sure everyone is happy and getting along. My mom is the one that is always there for you and makes sure that you have what you need. My dad is the strong one, he makes sure that everyone gets to where they need to be and schedules out everything, my uncle calls him father time every now and then. My brother and I, well, we are the clowns of the family. More so I am though, he just makes a joke and I run with it, sometimes a little to far. I make jokes to make the family happy, and to brighten up those serious situations, that is, when it is necessary. Sometimes they get really mad because I'm usually never serious at all, it’s just no fun to, so I don't, life is short, might as well live it happy is how I view things.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that I play a "role" in the family, because the person I am in the house and my family is the exact same person I am around my friends. It makes me feel good to make other people laugh and be happy, so I try to do it everywhere I go. Even with my friends, they still get somewhat annoyed at me because I take things to far and am never serious. I have always wondered if my friends think about me the same way my dads friends think about my him. Sometimes my dad can be a little bit to much to handle, he always wants to be in control and make sure things go as planed. He is know as the one to have a good time, which fits his personality perfectly. His friends always joke with him and give him a hard time because they know they can get under his skin really easy and get him all mad and defensive, but that’s what friends are for right? My dad is a source of a lot of peoples entertainment, at his expense that is. He’s notorious for getting your name wrong, the whole Castner family is known for this actually, but my dad has seem to master this trade very well. He will say five different names before he actually gets it right, its one of the funniest things to witness, his friends make fun of him for it all the time. He doesn’t do it all the time just when he has something exciting to say or he is in a rush. They also give my dad a hard time for being extremely nervous. Which is very true, my dad is very antsy person and very nervous at times, actually most of the time. He has a nervous habit, which he so graciously passed down to me, of biting his nails when he is either board or nervous. He never needs to use fingernail clippers on them because he bites them so much, they are actually nubs. The fingernail stops right where it meets the end of the finger. My mom gets so mad when she catches him doing this because she says its disgusting because he spits them on the floor when he is done, which I have to agree with but I cant harp on him to much for that because I do it as well.

Most of my funny and energetic characteristics come from my dad. That’s why me and him but heads and argue all the time. We are both the same person but I’m more on the calm relaxed side then he is and I get that from my mom. She is the quiet sensitive loving type, who is always telling everyone I love you all the time. She always seems to be the one always to walk in while me and my dad are wrestling, to yell stop it your going to break the furniture, as if she cared more about the furniture then us getting hurt, but we just play it off like she never even said anything and just keep fighting till the other one gets hurt and she just storms out of the room. I don’t really think you would consider what we do wresting, more like putting each other in headlocks and other types of submissions until the other one gives up, my dad so maturely taking my hand and making me hit my self and saying “Stop hitting yourself dumbass.” He is the one that usually wins though I’m just the one that always starts the fight with the question “Want to fight?” and he replies with “Ya, Join the army.” thinking he’s so funny. One time he had to go to the doctor because I hurt his wrist really bad from wrestling, the doctor told him he was going to need surgery if he didn’t stop wrestling with me and let it heal. Both my dad and I are really competitive towards each other, and I don’t mean just like a father son competitive I mean like a competitive attitude you would have towards your friends or rival team, we are always talking about who is better at what and who can do more of what. We are always playing one on one basketball, and he loves to cheat at that. One time my friends and I were playing outside on my hoop in the front yard, so he decides to come out and play with us making it three on three, at the end of the game my friends decide it would be a good idea for my dad and I to play one on one. They know about the competitive attitude between the two of us and that we would agree and it would be a very entertaining game to watch. This game comes up so often with my friends and I because they actually witnessed how competitive my dad and I truly are and how much of a funny thing it was to witnesses it. I almost broke my fingers in that game, blocking his shot of course, for an old man my dad can still move rather quickly. My mom is the completely opposite of my dad, like they always say, opposites attract. She shows much more affection then my dad does, it must be a girl thing. My dad and I show our affection by wrestling each other and punching each other, you know manly things. She gets her loving and caring since of humor from my grandpa.

My grandpa is a very nice person, that is when he wants to be. He is very off and on when it comes to being nice, usually my mom has to make him feel bad about it before he is nice to her. My grandpa plays the role of the big mystery or big myth of the family. If you have ever seen the movie Big Fish then you will know exactly what I am talking about. The stories he tells are something that could be strait out of a movie or book. For instance, he has had five different wife’s who have all been assassinated, or he worked in the black market for the army. My favorite story that he tells all the time was when he was in college. I forget the college now, in fact he actually never gives the little details about the stories he tells, but he was a photographer at the time and he was up in the photographer’s booth and all of the sudden all of the football players took him down and huddled around him, tore off his cloths, put pads, and a uniform on him. They put him in the game as a quarterback because the starting quarterback got hurt and he threw a sixty yard pass to win the game. He said that they saw him throw a football during practice one time and knew that he had a good arm. During WWII he and another soldier were walking pass a house that was bombed and there was nothing left but a door and a basement. They walk in the door and there sits a mother and a daughter who have been living in this blown up house with nothing to eat or sleep on. So my grandpa reaches in his boot and hands the mother a piece of paper that was worth a million dollars, I can't exactly remember where he got that money from or why he had it, but it was something involving a top secret mission of course.

Why does my grandpa tell these extravagant stories, maybe because he wants to entertain? It's not so much that these stories are hundred percent made up but they are more or less real events that have happen to him to some extent, just blown out of proportion with many added details. I think it is mainly because he doesn’t want us to view him as a boring person who has led a uneventful life. Now don't get me wrong my grandpa has had some amazing things happen in his life time and has visited many extravagant places, but he drowns them out with all these stories he tells. My mom has wondered about these stories for a long time and which ones and how much of them were true. She finally decided to talk to his sister who lives in Chicago and ask her all about them and got the facts strait. She found out that most of them are false to a certain extent, but a part of me still believes them anyways, just because its fun to. Every time we visit him, he is usually ready with a new story that has nothing to do with what we are talking about at the time, he just loves to hear himself talk. Every time you start talking about yourself or something that has happen to you , he has somehow done the same thing just better then you, once again proving my theory that he wants everyone to know that he too has done awesome things in his life and that we are not the only ones who have done interesting things.

To get a better idea of what is going on in my grandpas head I decided to write what it would be like in his head and what he is thinking when he tells these stories. When we start telling him about something we are excited about he just sits there and listens for the main subject and not paying attention to the details. His brain then just starts firing off ideas of past memories that have happen to him or has happen to someone else. He then thinks, hey I need to let them know that I too have had something like this happen to me too, but I don’t want to make it seem boring so I’ll add extra details here and there to it. He then starts telling his story and its sounding so boring in his head that he is afraid that we are getting board too, so he keeps just adding more and more extravagant things to the story till its unbelievable. Not knowing that he just made something that was about us now turn into something about him, and he then when the story is done he thinks checkmate, as if he just toped our story.

I don’t want to go as far as saying that my grandpa has Alzheimer’s, but I wouldn’t feel bad about saying he has characteristics of Alzheimer’s, things like memory dementia, and forgetfulness. I hate to view my grandpa in this way because I know how strong he is and what kind of person he really was because of the stories of things he really did that my mom has told me, and it takes a way from his image when you start talking about Alzheimer’s. In Time magazine Ray Chhetri, a café partron and a nurse-manager at a Hospital says “Looking after a dementia patient is hard work, a living bereavement.” That statement couldn’t be more true too, because I have witnessed first hand of how hard this can be with my grandpa. My grandpas knees have been hurting him for quite sometime now, so finally a couple of years ago he decided to get surgery on them. The surgery went really well, it’s the aftermath that was the hard part. My grandpa was a totally different person, he went in the surgery really energetic and came out almost like a zombie, he was acting exactly how a person with Alzheimer’s would. I’m actually getting goose bumps just thinking about it. My relationship between me and my grandpa was good but not as good or as loving as I would have liked it to be and it was this moment that made my weak relationship with him become stronger, because I realized that he is old and he could be gone in a second and that he is no longer the strong independent grandpa I use to view him as when I was little. He basically went crazy, he wasn’t acting like his normal self. We had to put him into one of those places where they look after him and take care of him because he wasn’t allowed to go home by himself, this was hard on my mom and the family as well, it was something completely new to us. It was then that I realized that my very independent grandpa was not so independent and needed our help, whether he wanted it or not. Every time we visited him he would try to get us to help him “escape”, he would tell us to have the car running in the front and he would get his things together and we would make a run for it, every time my mom somehow managed to change the subject and get him going on something else. Of course it wouldn’t be grandpa if he didn’t come out of there with some stories to tell, like how the nurses were hitting on him and they were giving him medicine that made it so that he wasn’t getting any better. It was weird because after a month or so after all this had happened it was as if he slipped out of it and became normal again. It was a scary moment in my life because I thought I was about to lose him and never be able to have a normal conversation with him again, even if it was all about him or consisted of fairytale stories.


Hildebrand by Hilaire Belloc

Who was frightened by a Passing Motor, and was brought to Reason

"Oh murder! What was that, Papa!"
"My child, It was a Motor-Car,
A most Ingenious Toy!
Designed to Captivate and Charm
Much rather than to rouse Alarm
In any English Boy.

"What would your Great Grandfather who
Was Aide-de-Camp to General Brue,
And lost a leg at Waterloo,
And Quatre-Bras and Ligny too!
And died at Trafalgar!-
What would he have remarked to hear
His Young Descendant shriek with fear,
Because he happened to be near
A Harmless Motor-Car!
But do not fret about it! Come!
We'll off to Town
And purchase some!"

In this poem there is only a part that corresponds and makes me think about my grandpa and actually gave me a much clearer picture of my grandpa and made me think about him in a different way. The second stanza where Belloc talks about how many extravagant things her grandpa has done but when it comes down to it, he is just a normal person like you and me. When this harmless car comes close to him it shows his true colors and he gets scared, displaying that even though he may have went through all these heart wrenching experiences he is still vulnerable and scared, and maybe that’s why he tells these stories, to hide these true feelings from everyone else.

1200 word

In my family everyone has their own little roles. My sister is the peace keeper, the one who is always making sure everyone is happy. My mom is the one that is always there for you and makes sure that you have what you need. My dad is the strong one, he makes sure that everyone gets to where they need to be and schedules out everything. My broth and I, well, we are the clowns of the family. More so I am though, he just makes a joke and I run with it, sometimes a little to far. I make jokes to make the family happy, and also to brighten up those serious situations (when necessary). Some times they get really mad because I'm usually never serious at all, its just no fun to, so I don't, life is short, might as well live it happy.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that I play a "role" in the family, because the person I am at the house is the exact same person I am around my friends. It makes me feel good to make other people laugh and be happy, so I try to do it everywhere I go.

Most of my funny energetic characteristics come from my dad. That’s why me and him but heads and argue all the time. We are both the same person but I’m more calm and I get that from my mom. She is the quiet sensitive loving type, she’s the one always to walk in while me and my dad are wrestling, to yell stop it your going to break the furniture, as if she cared more about the furniture then us getting hurt, but we just play it off like she never even said anything and just keep fighting till the other one gets hurt and she just storms out of the room. Both my dad and I really competitive towards each other we are always talking about who is better and what and who can do more of what. We are always playing one on one basketball, and he loves to cheat at that. One time my friends and I were playing so he decides so come out and play with us making it three on three, at the end of the game my friends decide it would be a good idea for my dad and I to play one on one, so we did. This game comes up so often with my friends and I because they actually witnessed how competitive my dad and I truly are. I almost broke my fingers in that game, blocking his shot of course, for an old man my dad can still move quick. My mom is the completely opposite of my dad, like they always say opposites attract. She shows way more affection then my dad does, it must be a girl thing. She gets her loving and caring since of humor from my grandpa.

My grandpa is a very nice person, that is when he wants to be. He is very off and on when it comes to being nice, usually my mom has to make him feel bad about it before he is nice to her. My grandpa plays the role of the big mystery or big myth of the family. If you have ever seen the movie Big Fish then you will know exactly what I am talking about. The stories he tells are something that could be strait out of a movie or book. For instance, he has had five different wife who have all been assassinated, or he worked in the black market. My favorite story that he tells all the time was when he was in college, I forget the college now, but he was a photographer at the time, and he was up in the photographers booth and all of the sudden all of the football players took him down huddled around him, tore off his cloths and put pads and a uniform on him. They put him in the game as a quarterback because the starter got hurt and they saw him throw a football during practice one time. Or during WWII he and another soldier were walking pass a house that was bombed and there was nothing left but a door and a basement. They walk in the door and there sits a mother and a daughter who have been living in this blown up house, so my grandpa reaches in his boot and hands the mother a piece of paper that was worth one million dollars, I can't exactly remember where he got that money from or why he had it, but it was something involving a top secret mission.

Why does my grandpa tell these extravagant stories, maybe because he wants to entertain? It's not so much that these stories are hundred percent made up but they are more or less real events that have happen to him to some extent just blown out of proportion with many added details. I think its mainly because he doesn't want us to view him a boring person who has led a uneventful life. Now don't get me wrong my grandpa has done some amazing things happen in his life time and has visited many extravagant places, but he drowns them out with all the stories he tells. My mom has wondered about these stories for a long time and which ones and how much of them were true. So she finally decided to talk to his sister and ask her all about them and got the facts strait. She found out that most of them are completely false to a certain extent, a part of me still believes them any ways, just because its fun to. Every time we visit him he is usually ready with a new one to tell, he loves to hear himself talk. Every time you start talking about yourself, he somehow turns it about him and has a story about it, once again proving my theory that he wants everyone to know that he too has done awesome things in his life and that we are not the only ones who have done interesting things.

Running in the family 61-101

This reading was a lot more clearer than the previous chapters, packed with more detail about Ondaatje as a person. Theses chapters seemed to be a little more exciting and interesting. It seems as though Ondaatje like to start most of his chapters with something that makes you think or something that has deeper meaning then what you read. "On my brother's wail in Toronto are the false maps." (63) Ondaatje goes on to explain what this means but it is still not as clear as it should be, it makes you think more then other authors do.

So far Ondaatje has almost a magical feeling to this book, making events almost seem not real or making you think that they couldn't happen. "We used the thalagoya to scale walls. We tied a rope around its neck and heaved it over a wall. It's claws could cling to any surface, and we pulled ourselves up the rope after it." (74,75) After I read that I can't picture any little kid, not matter how light they were, climbing up a wall using an animal. It just doesn’t seem like that would be possible. Ondaatje also talks about people being reincarnated as animals. "Finally one of the old workers at Rock Hill told my stepmother what had become obvious, that it was my father who had come to protect his family." (99) For most people this seems hard to believe but for others they believe it, either way its something magical that Ondaatje put into his story.

I'm not sure if I like how Ondaatje put so many poems in throughout the book, they have little impact on me and don’t make to much since. I know that they have to deal with the story in some way, but right now it just doesn’t make to much since of why they are there.

Running in the family 17-60

After reading this memoir it has to be one of the better of the memoirs, but it is still really confusing. In the book Ondaatje jumps around a lot from one subject to other, but I think he does this because he wants to show that his life is like his writings, all over the place, from one thing to the next. Ondaatje seems to be very informed about his families past history, his type of writing is informative yet still seems like a story rather than an informative memoir. He does a great job at describing the scene instead of just telling you. I have learned more about his family than I have of Ondaatje, but I think he does that on purpose, he wants you to get a good feel of where he came from and the people that surround him, hopefully we will get more stories about things that have happen to him later on in other chapters, chapters that are really short.

Much of the focus falls on his father Mervyn Ondaatje and his scandalous drunken antics. "During that time he could do nothing but drink. Humorous and gentle when sober, he changed utterly and would do anything to get alcohol. He couldn't eat, had to have a bottle on him at all times." (58) Here it shows that Ondaatje didn't really have a close friend relationship with his father, kind of that like Lott had with his father. Each member of his family hold a theme in Ondaatjes life.

So far this book is a mix of history of actual events of things that have happened in the world and stories about his family that contains a lot of detail about his family, he seems to tie all of this together really well. Ondaatje describes his family as very rich for that time, with things such as horses that raced, and a family that thrives on alcohol. "The only occupation that could hope to avert one from drink and romance was gambling. [...] If it was not horses it was crows. A crippled aunt, who could not get to the track m began the fashion of betting on which crow would leave the wall first." (48) Not only is his family real heaving into alcohol but they are into gambling, if its not one bad addictive habit it is another. I think that this will play a big role and will be mentioned a lot throughout the memoir.

FSB 900 word blog

In Fathers, Sons, & Brothers Bret Lott does a great job presenting you with his past childhood memories. Lott remembers these childhood memories so clearly because of the senses that are involved in the memories that he then uses those memories to that help paint a clearer picture for him and for the reader by talking about things like color or shape of his surroundings. Talking about his son Jake Lott says: “For Jake, all of these are occasions for comment about colors, or smells, or, even eating.” (193). This shows you that not only was Lott impacted by senses but his brothers and kids were as well. Everything you do everyday deals with hearing, tasting, or seeing something. Most of my vivid memories I could tell you exactly what the smell of the air was or the taste in my mouth. Lott uses these senses to give you a much clearer picture of what he has in his head. He does a good job at using them effectively to get the message across that he is trying to convey.

I think that sound plays a bigger role in Lott's life than we actually think it does: "That sound passing through me and swallowing me whole, me that much alone in the world” (22). Lott thinks that he almost has a "special" power and that he can hear things that others can't, and that these sounds bug him some times. He will sometimes hum a tune just to know that the sounds of the outside world are not going away completely. He even wonders, at one point, if he can hear a dog whistle. I think that the sounds that he thinks he hears symbolize something of importance to him.

Usually when something new happens in your life that is significant, you tend to remember better than other little things. “He stops his bike at a mailbox shrouded with honeysuckle in bloom, pops off a flower, expertly guides the filament from inside the petals, then puts it to his mouth, licks it. 'Honeysuckle,' he says to me, and pops off another flower. 'People eat it.'” (193) Here Lott was introduced to something new, and he describes it with taste. Even though he did not describe the exact taste it had it his mouth, taste played a part of why he remembered it. In the same scene, there is another sense that helps Lott remember that scene: “There’s all colors in there. There’s pink, and red. Violet. Purple.” He stops, says from behind me, “There’s blue roses in there, too.” (193) The vivid image of all the arrangement of colors of flowers gives Lott a clear picture of that one particular scene.

The memories of little things like the logo of a beverage they use to drink as children: “There is no way for me to write about my life without writing of RC: our childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood all centered on Royal Crown Cola, Its logo pervasive in our lives:”[…]“We wore RC T-shirts, rode bikes emblazoned with RC Cola stickers, decorated our rooms with RC posters, […]Caught RC baseballs with blue RC baseball gloves.”(35) RC seems to play a big role in his life as a child. Such a big role that he had to write out word for word that there is no way for him to write about his life without writing about RC. Lott remembers RC Cola so well because, as a child, the logo was everywhere he looked. But the biggest impact of RC was not just the logo itself but what RC meant to his father and the family. RC was this fathers job and the true role of RC cola Lott said. “We watch the sodas swirl down the gutter, watch the colors collide and move and mix, we watch the carbonation- though we do not know this word, carbonation, call it instead fizz- swim up as the soda hits the concrete, colors swirling in this Saturday morning sunlight in Buena Park, California, colors moving down the gutter toward where, we know, it will finally dribble into the storm drain at the corner six housed down, a trail of colors and fizz that starts, as always, in front of the Lott’s house. Now the bottles are empty, and we stand up, amazed each time at just what has taken place here, the miracle of all this color.” (34) This really shows how much the sight of these clashing colors makes him remember this particular moment, and all they are doing is pouring sodas together. To show how much a impact the sight of all these colors had on this memory, Lott mentions the word colors five times in just this one quote. It’s the mixing of the different colors of the sodas that make Lott remember this one particular moment. Even though they have done this several times, every time it seems to amaze them even more then the last. The colors hold such a big impact on all of them, that they have no choice but to remember an event like this. Lott may have trouble at some parts of the book getting exactly what he wants to say out in words, but he make up for it by doing a great job at getting the image he remembers out by using the physical traits of things that were involved in that memory and painting a clear picture of the event.

FSB 300 word blog

When it comes to describing past memories, memories that formed Bret's childhood, in Father, Sons, and Brothers Bret Lott uses many descriptive details that please the senses. “For Jake all of these are occasions for comment about colors, or smells, or, even eating.” (Pg193) Brett likes to mainly use what he hears and the taste of things. These two sense not only play a big part in Bret's life but in yours and mine as well. Everything you do everyday deals with hearing something and tasting something. You decide the types of food you like based on the taste of it. Brett uses these two sense to make us feel a certain way, either happy or sad. He does a good job at using them effectively to get the right message across that he is trying to.

I think that sound plays a bigger role in Bret's life then we actually think it does. "that sound passing through me and swallowing me whole, me that much alone in the world” (Pg22) Bret thinks that he almost has a "special" power and that he can hear things that others can't, and that these sounds bug him some times. He will sometime hum a tune just to know that the outside world sounds are not going away completely. He even wonders at one point if he can hear a dog whistle. I think that the sounds that he thinks he hears symbolize something, what it might be ,I'm not to sure of?

“He stops his bike at a mailbox shrouded with honeysuckle in bloom, pops off a flower, expertly guides the filament from inside the petals, then puts it to his mouth, licks it. “Honeysuckle,” he says to me, and pops off another flower. “People eat it.” (Pg 193) Here Bret is introduced to something new, and he describes it with taste. Even though he didn't describe the exact taste it had it his mouth, taste played a part of why he remembered it. In the same scene there is another sense that helps Bret remember that scene. “There’s all colors in there.” … “There’s pink, and red. Violet. Purple.” He stops, says from behind me, “There’s blue roses in there, too.” (pg 193) The vivid image of all the arrangement of colors of flowers gives Bret a clear picture of that one particular scene.

Thesis

In some aspect Bret wants to be like his father, but in others he doesn't want to at all. In Fathers, Sons, & Brothers by Bret Lott, Brett is constantly comparing himself as a father and how he disciplines his kids to the ways of which his father did things when he was a child.

Myths and Roles not finished....

The first thing that came to mind when I heard "Myth of the family" I instantly thought of my grandpa. Now I'm not to sure that this is the track you wanted us to be going but its the only thing I could think of at this time. My grandpa is a very nice person, that is when he wants to be. He very off and on when it comes to being nice, usually my mom has to make him feel bad about it before he is nice to her. But the myth comes in to play when he tells his stories. If you have ever seen the movie Big Fish then you will know exactly what I am talking about. The stories he tells are something that could be strait out of a movie or book. Like he has had five different wife who have all been assassinated, or he worked in the black market. My favorite story that he tells all the time was when he was in college,I forget the college now, but he was a photographer at the time, and he was up in the photographers booth and all of the sudden all of the football players took him down huddled around him, tore off his cloths and put pads and a uniform on him. They put him in the game as a quarterback because the starter got hurt and they saw him throw during practice one time. Or during WWII he and another soldier were walking pass a house that was bombed and there was nothing left but a door and a basement. They walk in the door and there is a mother and a daughter living in this blown up house, so my grandpa reaches in his boot and hands the mother a piece of paper that was worth one million dollar, I can't exactly remember where he got that money from or why he had it.
Why does my grandpa tell these extravagant stories? It's not so much that these stories are 100% made up but they are more or less real events just blown out of proportion with many added details. I think its because he doesn't want us to view him a boring person who has led a uneventful life. Now don't get me wrong my grandpa has done some amazing things in his life times, but he drowns them out with all the stories he tells. He grew carrots in his farm in the back yard by the pool(food product). My mom has wondered about these stories for a long time so she finally went to his sister and asked him all about them and got the facts strait. She found out that most of them are completely false, a part of me still believes them any ways, just because its fun to. Every time we visit him he is usually ready with a new one to tell, he loves to hear himself talk. Every time you start talking about yourself, he somehow turns it about him and has a story about it.

In my family everyone has their own little roles. My sister is the peace keeper, the one who is always making sure everyone is happy. My mom is the one that is always there for you and makes sure that you have what you need. My dad is the strong one, he makes sure that everyone gets to where they need to be and schedules out everything. My broth and I, well, we are the clowns of the family. More so I am though, he just makes a joke and I run with it, sometimes a little to far. I make jokes to make the family happy, and also to brighten up those serious situations (when necessary). Some times they get really mad because I'm usually never serious at all, its just no fun to, so I don't.(life is short, might as well live it happy)
I wouldn't go as far as saying that I play a "role" in the family, because the person I am at the house is the exact same person I am around my friends. It makes me feel good to make other people laugh and be happy, so I try to do it everywhere I go.

Fathers, Sons and Brothers (1-32)

It's nice to have a book viewed in the eyes of a boy this time, it’s a good change. It is clear right from the start of the book that he is going to go through many different changes because they seem to move a lot. His memory is just as good as Mary Karrs, he remembers every little detail of every little thing. I think that I will be able to relate to this book a little bit more because I too have a brother that I share everything with and our relationship with each other is really close.

One thing that I like more about this book then I do the liars club is that this one doesn't seem to drag on as much as the Liars Club did, the stories are short and to the point, the only bad thing is that there is not much detail within them. I don't know if I'm going to like how he switches tense, I hope that it won't get to confusing. Who would think that something as small as a garage would have such a big impact on a family. The books starts off with a very strong line and could have a lot of foreshadowing in it. "This is the last room: the garage" (pg 1 essay the garage) "I can't help but think that, somehow, this loss of a garage had something to do with it. Back in California, we three boys used the garage as a heaven from Mom and Dad, built extravagant forts of blankets and chairs… It was in that garage that we became, it only occurs to me now, brothers.”(Pg5 essay the garage)Could that actually be true thought??? The garage symbolizes freedom for them and a place where they can be themselves and let lose. Sounds also are a big part in Brets memory, he feels as though he can hear things that others can't, he sometime hums a tune or sings just to know that the sounds of the world around him aren't drowning out. “There is no way for me to write about my life without writing of RC; our childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood all centered on Royal Crown Cola, its logo pervasive in our lives;” ( pg 35 essay Royal Crown) It’s weird to think that something as small as a soda holds such a big memory in Bret’s life. Most people just viewed it as a drink but his had much more depth and meaning to it.

600 (revised)

In any book you read you will find out that it is filled with imagery. Some images are more visible than others. In the Liars Club I feel as though Mary Karr didn't want her imagery to be as visible and blatant as other authors make it. She likes to make her images small but very strong by using repetition. The way she uses her images make you feel a certain way, either happy or sad. Even though most of Mary’s memories were somewhat sad and twisted she had hints of happy ones in there. Most of these happy memories involved her father. This is why I feel that Mary’s father was a image of sanity/happy to Karr but as she grows older and times change her fathers image to her changes drastically. It wasn’t so much the big things that her father did for her but the small things. It would be the little things that would stick out in Karr’s head. Like when he would invite her to go to the liar clubs meetings, which would soon change do to his unhappiness himself.

The things Mary does with her father sticks with her forever, things that may not be such a big deal to her father but a huge deal to Mary: "My father comes into focus for me on a Liar's Club afternoon. He sits at a wobbly card table weighed down by a bottle. Even now the scene seems so real to me that I can't but write about it in the present tense." (15) This shows just how much of an impact the Liars Club has on her life and how much she remembers from it. Most all the stories that she tells about the liars club are happy in her mind. When Mary is there she feels safe and can just let go and relax. It is here that her dad really shows his love for her too, and this is why Mary loves it so much, because she can make that connection with her father. You can tell that she loves being there because the details that she remembers are down to a tee. Like a turn of the head or the smell of the air, she knows almost every word that is said by everyone.

It is from her father that Marry got to be the person that she was, rough and tough. “Daddy had instructed me in the virtue of what he called equalizers, which meant not only sticks, boards, and rocks, but having on hell of a long memory for mistreatment. So I wouldn’t hesitate to sneak up blindside and bit a bigger kid who’d gotten the better of me a week before.” (63) Without him her life would be completely different.

Her dad loved her a lot and maybe didn’t blatantly show it. Sometimes it wouldn’t be things that she didn’t even realize till she was older and writing this book. “My daddy watched Hurricane Carla come up the Intercostal canal from the Gulf. He claimed to be high in a sort of crow’s nest at the time, behind a thick glass wall that let him look out over half the county.” ( 23) He was up in this tower because he was picking up extra hours at the refinery because he knew what had to be done to help out his family and this was it. Even though there was a huge hurricane coming that could cost him his life, he stuck it out because he really loves Marry and the family, even though he may not have showed it like some dads do. This eventually all adds up and weakens her fathers image to Mary and make the relationship between the two grow smaller. After her parents decide to split up things go downhill from there between them, things weren’t like they use to be. Karr has many images crammed in this book, some we may never even notice, but it was the little images that made a big impact and shaped her life.

Memory List

It was about a week before Christmas and my dad came in and got me my broth and sister together and told us that he had a surprise for us. So we all gathered in the living room waiting for the surprise. About one minute later my dad comes busting through the door holding this little dog, and sets it on the ground in front of us. At first we are all in shock, we didn't know what to think. "Is it ours, is it lost, are we just baby sitting it?" Finally my dad blurts out, "It's yours!" The excitement was overwhelming. I finally had my own dog, I remember picking up at first and setting it right back down because her belly was so warm, it felt weird to me I guess.

Another memory that sticks out in my head was when we finally got a pool. It was summer and I was about 12 years old, and my mom and dad decided to get a pool in the back yard. I remember how excited I was when they finally came to start digging. The hole they dug was so huge, I found it fascinating to jump down in there, after they left for the day, and play around in it, till my mom yelled for me to get out. I couldn't wait for the pool to finally be done I would be the only person on the street to have a pool!

I can't think of many more right now.

600 words

In any book you read you will find out that it is filled with imagery. Some images are more visible than others. In the Liars Club I feel as though Mary Karr didn't want her imagery to be as visible and blatant as others make it. She likes to make her images small but very strong by using repetition. The way she uses her images she makes you feel a certain way, either happy or sad. Two images I felt that Karr used that she wanted to have a big impact would be the relationship Mary has with her dad and another would be the time she spends at the liars club.

"If Daddy's past was more intricate to me than my own present, Mothers was as blank as the West Texas desert she came from."(Pg22 Ch3) Mary's relationship whether it be strong or weak, I think it symbolizes her connection to the real world and a real friend. Though he might not be around as much as Mary would like, he is her best friend and keeps her "sane" from all the chaos that is going on around her. You can tell that her dad plays the role/image of her sanity because most of her memories are about him or involve him. Mary can remember very vivid details about her father, especially when he is telling his lies to the men in the liars club. It is at the liars club that Mary's dad becomes her true friend. No one else in the liars clubs brings their child but Mary gets to go, and if some one tries to say something bad towards Mary, her dad is right there behind here sticking up for her.

" I hear about daddy doing this kind of meanness, and I see guys shy away when he strolls over to a pool table, but he handles me like I'm something glass. Even his spankings are mild enough to seem symbolic." (Pg 169) This line shows that even when Mary's dad may be trying to discipline her he is still doing it in a loving way. Not only is her dad symbolic but the things he does are symbolic(punishments)

I feel that Karr wants the liars club to symbolize the only steady/normal thing in Mary's life. When Mary is there she feels safe and can just let go and relax. It is here that her dad really shows his love for her too, and this is why Mary loves it so much, because she can make that connection with her father. You can tell that she loves being there because the details that she remembers are down to a tee. Like a turn of the head or the smell of the air. She knows almost every word that is said by everyone.

"My father comes into focus for me on a Liar's Club afternoon. He sits at a wobbly card table weighed down by a bottle. Even now the scene seems so real to me that I can't but write about it in the present tense." (pg15 Ch1) This shows just how much of an impact the Liars Club has on her life and how much she remembers from it. Most all the stories that she tells about it are happy in her mind. It's the little things that have a big impact on Mary's life and stand for an image in her bizarre life.

Image List

Buy this book
1)"She hawked up a huge boogery gollop from way back in her throat, parkusing every now and then to tell me she was fixing to huck it at me."(Pg.101) This shows the relationship between Mary and Lecia. It's a very loving relationship that is showed through by doing mean things.

2)"Lecia fed me this lie pretty soon after we got off the phone with mother, I swallowed it like a big mouthed bass."(Pg. 102) This also shows what time of relationship that Mary and Lecia have, and one that most older and younger siblings have together. Lecia finds it almost like a hobby of hers to feed Mary these big lies that Mary ends up swallowing them like a big mouthed bass.



3)"You touch a dead man sometime.".... "Hard as that table."(Pg.104) This was part of one of Mary's dads lies that he tells at the liars club. This shows what kind of person he is and that he always has descriptive details to go along with his lie.

4)"But instead of just letting her hand relax, so he wouldn't see her shooting the bird, she hid the whole hand behind her head, still froxen in the fuck-you position."(Pg.109) This shows the kind of stuff/relationship between Mary and Lecia. She would be mean to her when they were alone but as soon as her parents were around she was much nicer to her.

5)"He had the easy glide of men who labor for an hourly wage, a walk that wastes no effort and refuses to rush. His barrel chest and legs were pale."(Pg.110) This gives a great description of how Mary's dad looks like and acts. He is a hard working man that is just trying to support his family and it is showing on his physical appearance.

6)"I couldn't remember if the Breeze Inn sold mixers, in which case I wondered did Mother have her purse with her. A purse might hold a fifth of vodka."(Pg.113) This description shows what Mary thinks about her mom at times, because her mom is a binge drinker and this worries Mary. This also shows what kind of person her mother is.

7)"Mother and I are flying under underwater like light green phantoms."(Pg. 117) This description shows how happy Mary is when her and her mother are doing fun things together (skinny dipping). Describing it like this shows how much of a "zone" she is in when her mom shows affection towards her.

8)"My daddy watched Hurricane Carla come up the Intercoastal Canal from the Gulf. He claimed to be high in a sort of crow's nest at the time, behind a thick glass wall that let him look out over half the country."(Pg.97) This description maybe signifies Mary's dads separation from the rest of the world and the family. Even though he is maybe there physically he is not there like he use to be before her grandma came into the picture.

Quiz 1

A. Mary’s grandmother is not what a normal loving grandmother should be like. She is a cancer stricken women who feels the need to make Mary’s and her sisters life a living hell. The image and smell that Mary has about her grandmother is not very pleasant, one legged and she has the smell of a water moccasin (death), Mary says the cancer is eating the life out of her from the inside. She thinks that Mary and Lecia are spoiled little brats who get what they want and don’t respect their parents. So she talks Mary’s mother into spanking them every chance she can get. She even went to the extent of making a whip to beat them with! She is a very grumpy old woman who is slowly dieing and feels as though she should make everyone else around her suffer, Mary’s dad is already not home anymore because of her. She is slowly losing her mind, or is she? She told Mary that her mother had two other children that she shipped away as young children becasue they were not obeying her, and they they were going to be the same way if they didn't shape up. Her cancer/her slowly dieing, makes Mary’s mother very sad and she hardly shows any emotion any more and is not nervous as much. This is killing Mary and she doesn't like it one bit.

B. A very big hurricane that is slowly moving into Leechfield is driving everyone quickly out of there, that is besides Mary’s family. They are taking their time and are in no rush what so ever to leave, in fact they have to be asked twice by the army that is evacuating them to leave. Everyone is gathering their things that mean the most to them such as pictures and wedding certificates, but Mary’s family is acting as if they don’t care at all. Her dad is working double overtime at the plant, not even coming home sometimes and her mom is still showing no emotion towards anything. Finally when they are forced to leave they cross one of the tallest bridges at a very fast speed because by this time there is no one on the roads because they have all evacuated already. Mary’s mother is showing no emotion what so ever (Mary throwing up) but Lecia said that she kept turning around and reaching at Mary and she turned the wheel left and they spun out and got in a wreck(the car actually left the ground). It hardly did any damage to the car and everyone was ok, but Mary was worried and asked Lecia why is mom trying to kill them?

Passage (23-96) and Family Event

“He unbuttoned my white shirt and told me I was getting breasts.”(Ch 3 pg. 65) When this passage came up about Mary getting sexually taken advantage of by this boy, I was shocked and completely taken off guard. It makes you think, do things like this happen a lot to little kids this age. When you think of that age (7) you think of playing out side with your friends and have a good innocent time. This passage is one that kept me reading for while because I wanted to see what would happen next. This book is not as predictable as I thought it was going to be. The weird thing about this event that happen is that Mary didn’t seem effected by it that much at all. She bottled it up and acted like nothing happened at all, because she knew that if she had told some one what would happen if she did. She figured that more bad would come out of it if she told people about it. I wish she would have it would have made the story that much more interesting.

Looking up at the large sequoia trees in Yosemite National Park took my breath away and made me realize that there is so much more to the world that I haven’t yet seen. I can still picture the dark redness of the bark and the burnt black bark of some trees that survived wildfires. The smell was fresh and inviting, it didn’t even feel real, it felt as though I was on a different planet. I remember feeling so shitty on the way up because the windy roads made me get car sick, but as soon I started to walk around I instantly felt better. The image of the beautiful Yosemite National Park will forever be a very vivid picture in my head and I will remember it forever.

Revised:
Seeing such large and massive trees took my breath away. To give you idea of how big these trees are, we drove our care through one that had a big hole in it. There were trees that had fallen over and you could see the roots, the base of these roots as a whole were as large as a side of a house. It looked like a large tangle mess of gigantic wires. The largest tree (General Sherman) had a circumference of 102.6 ft. The pine cones that fell of the Sequoias were not pine cones you see around here, these things were as big as your head if not bigger and to know they produced this little plant to witch interned into a giant massive sequoia was amazing to me. The image of these giant Sequoias will forever be branded in my head.

The Memoir and the Memoirist (Introduction)

Now this is the kind of school reading I was expecting(boring). This book is defiantly not as intriguing as the liars club. The book started off vary slow and kind of picked up a little towards the end of the introduction. This books just seems like its going to be one of those boring books full of big words and descriptions that just aren't that fun to think about. Now I hope this book proves me wrong and starts to get a lot more interesting and more fun to read, but by judging by the first ten pages I found myself thinking about other things. I did find some interesting things like when he describes the difference between a autobiography and memoir. To write a memoir you have to be selective; to write one's autobiography is to be indiscriminate(Pg.2) You can tell right of the bat that Larson is an intelligent teacher by the way he answers the students questions and his ideas that he feeds them. It shows that his methods of teaching are very effective because when it is time for the students to leave they come back and insist on him teaching them further. The demanding of his students show that he is a great teacher and he knows what he is doing. Hopefully this book will open my eyes to new things and will prove me wrong and turn out to be a very good book.

The Liars Club (Ch 1)

Starting off this chapter I was a little bit confused about what was going on in the scene, as I read on I wasn't quite sure if Dr. Boudreaux was trying to take advantage of her or not. I am guessing since the Mary knew and wasn't hurting and didn't have any marks on her at all, that he was. Mary's life as a child is not far fetched at all, a lot of kids now of days do not have parents who are home all the time to be with them, in fact its quite common. The book started off slow but really picked up when she starts talking about how her mom and her dad became married. I found Mary's mom really interesting, because she has had many different husbands and many different story's for each of them. I wasn't expecting the meaning of the title of the book to be thrown out there so quick, but I felt that it was a pretty funny reason.( The men telling their wife's that they were going some where and they would actually meat up with each other, and then they got found out) It is at the liars club that Mary hears some of her dads most interesting stories, and I think that there will be plenty more of these detailed stories to come from this club. It's weird that Mary feels as though she remembers more about her dad then she can about her self. I think this shows how much love she has for her dad and how much she likes hearing his stories.

The humor in this book seems kinda dry and serious, but every now and then they throw in a couple of funny lines here and there. It adds flavor to the book. I hope this books picks up a little bit and starts to get interesting. But I do have to say... for a school book it's actually not to bad so far.

Hey, my name is Todd I am a Freshman at Ohio University. I have a mom and dad and two other siblings, a brother and a sister, both older than me. My older brother is the main reason I attended this college because he was a grad from here. I have a very loving family who treats me very well and loves me very much.
This is my first college english experience so far it seems like it should be fun. My past experiences of english classes have some what been boring, consisting of books and papers that didn't appeal to me what so ever. I feel as though this is why I don't usually get the most out of my english classes. It always seemed as though I got stuck with some old lady who seemed as though she loved making her students hate writing papers and reading. The material was always forced on you and not very appealing at all. I hope to learn a lot of new and interesting things in this class. The whole blogging thing is not something new to me but something that I have ever done before. I have read many blogs about many different things. I am hoping this this will make english class more fun and make me actually enjoy my assignments. It's going to be different knowing that anyone at anytime can view my assignment I just turned in, not just the teacher. I don't know if this is going to make me think twice about what I write or actually make me write better. I haven't ever heard of the books that we will be reading but they seem pretty interesting and easy to write about.