American Literature (C) Portfolio

She was gone- vanished like a bug on a windshield. One minute we were all laughing in an empty parking lot, the next we sat silent, staring confused at the empty white hood. Gone. A few moments passed before I was able to grasp what had happened and step out of the car. She was lying on the ground, her hands firmly cradling her head as her body rocked back and forth on the dusty gray pavement. Her white pants were ripped on the knees and blood oozed from the newly formed holes. “She needs water,” Lena said as I opened the door to the backseat. “Just get the water.” We were unintentionally yet very intentionally reckless. Our longing for freedom which had built up for so long was spilling over the brim. We arrived on the top floor of a parking lot. As we stepped out of his shiny white car, the soft breeze embraced us and played with our hair as we spread out across the empty area. Clouds created patches of purple and orange on the light blue sky and disappeared into the sunset. The feeling of freedom spread like ecstasy in our bodies as we stretched out our arms and allowed our legs to carry us around every inch of our gray wonderland. As I stared out onto the streets, observing the tiny people making their way home, my attention shifted to the sound of Lena’s voice requesting to drive Jacob’s car. Her intriguing suggestion urged me to quickly demand to go next. Soon we all had our turn speeding up and down the three floors of the parking lot, pretending we were professional race car drivers while driving approximately one mile an hour. After a while, Lena and I had the bright idea to lay on the hood of the car while Keniesha attempted to park it. An amused Alaia decided to follow our lead and took our spot on the hood. Her dimply smile widened as Keniesha teasingly pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, which filled the car with the ringing sound of our laughter. I rushed to the spot where she was lying, staring at her body rocking back and forth, waiting for her to tell me what to do. I froze. Finally I urged her to the back seat of the car while my hands frigidly attempted to find something to ease her pain. “I can’t find the water,” I told Lena as I searched through the trunk of his shiny white car. My lips couldn’t stop smiling. It was the same smile I had when my best friend told me they were moving away, and the same smile I had on my twelfth birthday when my mom told me my great grandmother had died. This was the first time I had ever seen Alaia afraid, and I smiled. I put my hand on her hair, stroking it and feeling what seemed to be a second head. The feeling of it made me cringe, the way it was throbbing. My hand moved away quickly and noticeably, my eyes wide as they stared at the back of her head. It was the last day. Anticipation and excitement filled our stomachs as we ran out of the dorm, fighting for a seat in his shiny white car. I sat in the middle, squeezed between Alaia on my right and Lena on my left, both stubbornly reaching over me attempting to find the aux cord. Keniesha, sitting in the front next to Jake, swiftly grabbed it first and plugged it into her phone. We sang at the top of our lungs, making up the lyrics as we went. I let my arm swim through the smooth summer air mimicking the rhythm of the song Alaia persisted on playing. The sun caressed her pitch black hair and she nodded to the beat of her favorite song. She wanted to go back and we refused, refused because we were selfish and wanted to continue our last adventure; we weren’t ready to let go yet. The bump on her head seemed to grow every time I touched it. We needed to find ice. We were still giggling. Giggling because we refused to find reality, or perhaps because we weren’t able to. Looking out the window staring at the pitch black sky full of stars I was smiling, but reality struck like a knife in my stomach each time I glanced back at Alaia’s dimple-less face. Too many distraction were taking place around us for anyone to be serious. All we could do was offer sympathetic looks. We sat, wrapped up in blankets, our eyes fixed on the horizon. The clouds spread across the vast extent of the sky, moving away as if to create space for the sun expanding its bright golden rays. Drops of dew crawled on the blades of grass, and the earth was slowly waking up again. Three heads leaned on each others shoulders, not saying a word while speaking the common language of silence. We all avoided saying that last defining word that was waiting to be spoken. All six eyes were squinting, still observing the bright blue and pink swirls sweeping across the mellow sky. Suddenly Alaia’s bump was no longer our biggest worry, but saying goodbye was.

When I think about a time I caused harm to someone I love I think of my mom. She lives an hour away from my dad’s and my school, and when my parents got divorced they agreed to have us split our time equally between the two households. I am the kind of person that thrives off of human connection. This was one of the first things I ever realized about myself; I need to interact with people who make me smile and people who let me be myself. I love to connect with people. When I think of pure happiness I think about a moment where I had never felt closer to someone in my whole life. A moment that made me realize that truly loving someone is something bigger than you ever thought imaginable. For me these moments are the reason for the routine and drag of our day to day that so often makes us tired and feeling lifeless. I live for these moments where life feels like it’s pulling you and you have no control, but you don’t want it anyway. But for me these moments are also associated with guilt. Every time I let myself spend time with people that make me feel, I am letting someone else down. That is my mom.
One afternoon earlier this year, my mom drove down from Bethel, Maine, where she lives, just to take me out to dinner before returning later that night while I stayed with my dad. She was happy to do it, though, because she misses my sister and me every day that we’re not with her. She brought me to my favorite sushi restaurant, even though she’s never been a fan, and started the conversation light. We talked about my boyfriend and my difficult classes. We’ve always been incredibly close and that never changes even when we don’t see each other. Then she started to talk about logistics. She asked me what I was doing the next weekend because she’d already made plans that included me. The problem was, I’d also made plans that didn’t include her. We fought. I told her that I’d made my plans months before and that I couldn’t let my friends down. She asked me first why I hadn’t thought to mention it to her, as it was her weekend to have me stay with her, then she asked me to cancel my plans. She asked me to please, just this once, put her above everything else in my life. It hit me hard, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that she was right. My sister was coming home from college, our family friends were coming to spend the weekend with us, and my mom was really excited for us all to be together. Still, it felt more important to me to uphold my commitment to my friend and I’m not sure why.
I felt really bad and I knew that my mom felt really bad, and by this time I could feel salty tears start to pool up in my ducts, as my vision started to blur. There we were sitting at a little table in a popular sushi restaurant, me hiding my face in my sweater to shield myself from the judgement that I feared surrounded me. I found comfort in the sweater that despite me having worn it multiple times belonged to my best friend and still smelled like him. I hated myself because I knew that I was sacrificing my family, and something that was so important to my mom. I still don’t know why I didn’t just cancel my plans, maybe it was my fear to let someone down or to not be the accommodating one, a position that I find myself in many times. But, I should have said no this once. I take my mom for granted, all the while knowing that she will be the one to love me the most at the end of every day. I should have relieved my mom from the pain of not seeing her baby. A pain she has told me can not be explained, but that I will understand when I have one of my own someday. It is the only regret I have and the most pain I have ever caused one person.

Never before had I thought that I would be standing in front of a smoking pile of ashes that had previously meant so much to myself and my family. The view was horrifying, but elegantly simple. “What has happened?”, and “What will happen?” we’re just a few of the thoughts running through my head. I was mostly in shock, like the feeling you get when an ice cube slides from the bottom of your glass to your tooth and hurts like hell. The ironic part is that this shock was caused, not by electricity or cold, but by fire.

I had just left class and was heading to the next when I saw an almost frantic Mr. Godomsky. For a man that usually stayed level headed and calm he was especially tense. Pulling me aside he said, “Hey Bradley, could I talk to you for a second?” I said “Yes.”, but immediately thought that I had done something wrong. Sitting in an office, one on one, with a teacher of  a higher caliber than most was nerve racking and unfamiliar to me. I wasn’t mature at this point in my life by any means and all I could do was sit and wait for the news to be delivered. I almost had a sense of knowing that what he revealed would be a turning point in my life, the positive or negative effect remaining unseen.

The land that remains has since adapted into a four wall wooden structure built by hand and with the greatest attention to detail. It is an art to build, to create in an almost godlike fashion, and to be in control of the materials laid before you. This is the way that my father lived his adult life, attempting to be in control, to plan things out and stay constant to his vision. Unfortunately, you can’t control everything, if we could, the world would be a different place. Things would be perfect, wouldn’t they?

Perfection is a myth. I grew up learning that God is the only perfect being to ever walk the face of the earth, and that everyone makes mistakes. No matter your feelings about religion, it is a scientific fact that living things cannot be perfect. All it took in my father’s case was a poorly timed spark. I was told that it began because of all the lacquer being used in the spray room, and that all of a sudden a spark lit the whole thing ablaze. The spray was so thick in the air that the air was on fire for an instant, and then spread rapidly through the dry wooden building filled with the best tinder money can buy.

You can probably now guess that the Barn I am referring to started burning down, but you don’t know the extent of the damage. Monetarily the entire mishap was not for the faint of heart. My father estimated at the time around a quarter of a million dollars worth of wood, tools, and machines were totally and utterly destroyed. The idea of the money bothered me more than it did my father. I was scared that there wouldn’t be enough money to go back to school. Half of my family’s worth was destroyed in just one day, leaving me to think, “What will happen?”

Although this dealt a devastating blow, that wasn’t what bothered my dad. Woodworking has been my father’s passion since he was in high school, and he feels incredibly lucky to do what he does for a living and that he can enjoy his work. I would also like to say that he is incredibly talented. My father can fix just about anything, and is one of the most imaginative people I know. When the Barn burned to the ground, my father took it pretty hard as anyone would when losing a structure that they had built my hand 20 or more years ago. He had sentimental connection to the building which is why it hurt so much. Money isn’t connected to your emotions, but passion, determination, vigilance, love, and work. Those are the qualities that he relates and connects to.

Now construction of a newer and better building is underway, and my father is again building it by hand. This is true. The moral of this story is to persevere, not in the sense of “keep trying until you succeed”, which is one of the basic morals used by all motivational speakers, but perseverance that keeps you on your toes, the feeling that you can be thrown to the ground and that you have to deal with it your own way. No one else is going to do it, so you have to right the mistakes made, and tighten the grasp around your life’s passion and your overall goal.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne offers a look into the life of Hester Prynne, a young woman who committed adultery and conceived a child in the act. Her daughter named Pearl, is an unusual and lively child, but the novel makes the reader question if Pearl helps redeem her mother’s sin or is the living embodiment of it. This is significant to the novel because it proposes the idea of good and evil, and whether someone can be redeemed by the result of the sin itself. Pearl’s outlawing behavior, her defiance against Puritan society, and her fascination with the devil support that Pearl is, in fact, the embodiment of Hester’s sin.
One might argue that Pearl is Hester’s savior from darker places than even her sin has taken her. Hester says to Mister Hibbins, a known witch who invites her to join her in worshiping the devil, “I must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own blood” (Hawthorne 80). Hester is refusing an offer to worship the devil with this woman because she was allowed to keep her child. In this scene, Pearl saves Hester from ‘signing’ herself away to the ‘Black Man’ which is the devil. However, Hester would not have been in this situation at the governor’s house if Pearl had not demonstrated such odd and elfish behavior. In this way, that Pearl is tormenting not redeeming her mother.
One way Pearl is a torment to her mother is in they way here actions are representative of the circumstances in which she was born. Pearl shows that she does not conform to the Puritan society when she refuses to believe she was “sent by the Heavenly Father” as Hester tells her (Hawthorne 67). The narrator then explains the townspeople viewing Pearl as a sign of the devil. The narrator recalls, “She remembered- betwixt a smile and a shudder- the talk of the neighbouring townspeople; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child’s paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mothers’ sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.” (Hawthorne 68). The townspeople believe based on Pearl’s behavior that she is a child of the devil. They searched ‘vainly elsewhere for the child’s paternity’ when it was clear that Pearl was not a complete human. Her ‘odd attributes’ made the townspeople think she was sent to Earth by the devil ‘to promote some foul and wicked purpose’ This was a common thought in this time, that if someone did not conform to Puritan society that they were associated with the devil. This shows that Pearl embodies her mother’s’ sin, and only makes it harder for Hester to endure her punishment of the scarlet letter.
Another example of a way Pearl is a torment to her mother is that she refuses to follow direction or conform to society in any way. She has no sense of authority, and does not at some times understand social norms or just does not want to fall in line with what she is expected to do. Hester and Pearl are beckoned to the Governor’s Hall because the clergymen, important men that embody the lord in the Puritan society, have noticed the strangeness and evil quality that Pearl shows. The enforcers of Puritan law want to determine whether Pearl is detrimental or beneficial to Hester’s redemption. The narrator observes, “The child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses, that grew by the prison-door” (Hawthorne 76). This shows Pearl’s sense of rebellion. Instead of agreeing she was sent to Earth by God, as she was carefully taught, she exclaims she was “plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses”. This shows she is ‘wild’, not only a flower, a wild flower. Her mother had trained her to be faithful to God. However, in this moment when Pearl’s life with her mother is on the line, she deliberately defies the Puritan beliefs and society. This defiance signifies that she is a child of the devil not the lord.
Pearl continues throughout the book to bring up the devil, and witchcraft. All things that are the ultimate evil to the Puritan society. She seems fascinated with the idea of evil, and sees it in people, that other’s would not. She sees old Roger Chillingworth in his window and shouts to her mom, “Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother, or he will catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl!” (Hawthorne 92). Pearl has a sense of the devil and what is evil. She sees things that others do not see, and is not afraid of the Puritan law enough to keep quiet. Although, this could be taken as brave, it has a significant negative effect on her mother. Hester takes the blame, from the townspeople, for Pearl’s appearance of oddness and obvious fascination with sin and evil. The townspeople believe because Pearl says things like, ‘Come away, or yonder Black Man will catch you!’ that Hester is either worshiping the devil, or Hester’s sin has taken a place inside of Pearl and made her think of and speak of the devil often. This impression of Pearl only outlaws Hester more from society.
Because of the oddness of Pearl’s actions, her lack of cooperation, and her fascination with evil it is clear that she is a torment to her mother. Her actions and words go against all the Puritan values. She has no sense of God and even suggests she does not believe in him when she claims she was ‘plucked from a rose bush’ instead of getting sent down from her Heavenly Father. She is believed by the townspeople to be sent here by the devil to fulfill a ‘foul and wicked purpose’. This creates only more of a social divide between Hester and the rest of the Puritan society. Hester not only has to bear her scarlet letter, but she also has to be branded by her illegitimate child. Not only does Pearl reinstate her sin, she drags Hester away from any possibility of being redeemed. She feels attached to Hester’s letter and throws a fit when she takes it off. When hester abandons her scarlet letter, the representation of her sin, Pearl feels abandoned too. Pearl’s clear connection to the devil, her defiance against society, and the fact that she will not let Hester escape her scarlet letter shows Pearl is the living embodiment of her mother’s sin

This is an interesting question to answer. Books like, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Crucible by Arthur Miller give readers a detailed and honest look into what life was like in Puritan America. The Scarlet Letter touches on early feminism and what it was like to be a woman that did not conform to the harsh Puritan law of religion. As it was first published in 1850, it is a very early look at feminism and gender inequality. The Crucible is the story of the Salem Witch trials in the 1690’s. Mostly women were tried for witchcraft not men, and the first women that were assumed witches were poor uneducated women who had no means to protect themselves. This is not only sexism, but also accusing based on these women’s social and financial statuses. These books are easy to read with the mindset that it is all history and we don’t live in these brutal times. However, are these assumptions really true? Our society looks very different today than 400 years ago, however gender equality is still a huge problem in the United States and all over the world. The level of morality in society has not changed since the 1600’s, although our society has evolved significantly, the way women are still treated in this country and the obvious roots of Puritan ideals show that morality has not improved.
In The Scarlet Letter and in Puritan societies there is an expectation of women to be and act a certain way, if they do not comply, they are severely punished and exiled from society (Bremer, 2005). Hester is treated exactly that harshly after she commits adultery and births an illegitimate child. In the novel Hester becomes rigid and worn down from the everlasting punishment of her sin. The narrator says, “Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.” (Hawthorne, 148) The narrator is saying that to stay a woman Hester must stay tender. However, “if she be all tenderness, she will die.” She must not be too strong, while being strong enough to make it through. In this time, women were not supposed to show power or strength, only delicateness. In Hester’s case she can not afford to be a ‘true woman’ and to be delicate and tender. Because of this, she is ignored and looked down upon by everyone in the town. Hester was exiled from her life because she made a mistake and did not conform to the expectation of a woman at that time.
The Lesser Sex is an article written by Rose Delaney in August 2016. It explores the gender inequality in Bangladesh, and how women are still treated there. Although the government has gone to great lengths to try and eliminate horrible treatment of women, it seems it not completely worked. She writes about a woman who was severely punished, by being hit with a cane 101 times because of alleged adultery. However, this ‘adultery’ was a man who broke into her house and she was trying to defend herself. She now carries the label of adultress for a man’s poor and reckless judgement (Delaney, 2016). This woman was labeled for something she did not even do and then was treated differently because of it. Although this was not in the United States it shows that in societies today gender equality is as, if not more, severe than in Puritan America.
In The Crucible the court first condemns poor or mentally unstable women before rich or ‘good Christian’ women. Not only is this not moral on the fact that social status has influence into whether these women will be condemned, but it also shows that only women were thought to be witches first. Elizabeth and John Proctor are have high social statuses, as they are well-off farmers and have a family. Elizabeth is speaking to John, claiming that Abigail is trying to take him from her. She says, “It is her dearest hope, John, I know it. There be a thousand names; why does she call mine? There be a certain danger in calling such a name– I am no Goody Good, that sleeps in ditches, nor Osbourn, drunk and half-witted. She’d dare not call out such a farmer’s wife but there be monstrous profit in it. She thinks to take my place John.” (Miller, 58) This quote shows how much more serious it is to accuse a ‘farmer’s wife’ than a woman who is ‘drunk and half-witted’. Elizabeth’s life is more valuable than Goody Good or Goody Osbourn because she is respected and she is a proper acting women. This is a completely immoral statement because it directly opposes the idea that all life is equal.
Still Puritan After All These Years is an article written by Matthew Hutson. It discusses surveys and tests that root America’s values to Puritanism and how they still affect American people’s views compared to other countries. In one experiment they surveyed Asian-American people on their support for a school rule that bans revealing clothing. When they were asked in terms of thinking of their American heritage, they were more likely to support the rule, then if they were asked to keep their Asian heritage in mind. They were also more likely to support the rule because it involves prudishness in the workplace, and how that has been associated with professionalism in our country going back to Puritan times. Other studies showed that American people were more quick to judge promiscuous women than British people were. These test results suggest that Puritan thought still remains when it comes to gender, work, and sex and how they work together. Americans morals are still deeply rooted in Puritan thoughts and ideals. Women are still held to a standard in schools and workplaces that suggests they must ‘cover up’ to not distract men. This is an example of a severely immoral and unjust thought that has shaped the structure of our society and has come from this Puritan way of thinking.
Our society has not become more moral now than in the 1600’s because a lot of Americans have thoughts of society that are still deeply rooted in Puritan ideals. Throughout history the people of the United States have fought to have equality amongst us. The Women’s Rights and Civil Rights Movements are examples of this country’s fight against the traditional Puritan thoughts and values. However, everyday minorities in this country face inequality. It might not seem as rash or harsh, but we do not have complete equality in our country. There are still people in our society today that base their morals off of Puritan thoughts, and this is where the hateful and injustice acts of misogyny, racism and discrimination in our country evolve from.

“You can’t always get what you want” is a sentence that many parents tell their children. Parents want their children to know that life isn’t always easy, and that they shouldn’t demand the things that they want. Parents want their children to be humble. However, what if the one thing the child wants is their family back together. Well, you can’t always get what you want. But, maybe that is a good thing after all.
“But if you try sometime you find you get what you need”. This song by The Rolling Stones was released in 1969. The song was written by band members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was a change from the band’s usual classic rock. The London Bach Choir, who were invited onto the track almost humorously, added a gospel tone to the song. Although the lyrics seem to express a melancholy message, the upbeat rhythm and tone create a feeling of hopefulness and salvation. The message seems quite obvious. It is that we might not always get what we want, but we still have everything we need. However, it is not that simple. The lyrics show that the song isn’t just about being humble, it is trying to get across that what you want isn’t always what is good for you.
In the first line of the song they sing, “I saw her there at the reception” (The Rolling Stones, 1969). From this line we can infer that the narrator has a woman that he wants. A couple lines after he says, “I knew she would find her connection” (The Rolling Stones, 1969). From this we see that the narrator will not get he wants. He wants this woman but she will make a ‘connection’ with another man. However, at the end of the song he sings, “ I saw her today at the reception… She was practiced at the art of deception, Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands.” (The Rolling Stones, 1969). The narrator realized that she was an deceptive, evil woman. He ended up not getting what he wanted, but what he wanted wasn’t what he needed. He was better off not getting what he wanted.
When I was ten years old all I wanted was my family to be a family again. At least this is what I thought I wanted. I was heartbroken during this time, and because of that I don’t remember much. However I do remember hating my mom for leaving (although I now see it as the strongest thing anyone in my life has ever done). I refused to go see her, and I cried everyday, not understanding like any other child. Everyday I thought this would all be fixed if it went back to the way it was before. That is not what I wanted. What I really wanted was to not feel like everything I knew was now gone forever. What I really wanted was for there to be less conflict in my life. And what I wanted the most was for my family to be happy.
It turns out that my parents splitting up was exactly what I needed. Everything I knew was still there. My parents still loved me and would do anything for me and my sister. There was a lot less conflict in my life. And most importantly, my family was going to be happier. From then my life has changed immensely, and while I will forever cherish my amazing childhood, I now have so many more people and places in my life I wouldn’t have had if I had gotten what I thought I wanted. My stepparents, step-grandparents, step-cousins, step-aunts and uncles. Plus, and extra home, an extra place where I can truly be myself. I did not get what I wanted. Instead I got exactly what I needed.

I carry many things. I carry my favorite hairbrush. I carry tomorrow’s outfit. I carry my pink portable hair dryer. I carry the stress relief body lotion that smells like lavender, because the one at my dad’s house doesn’t make me feel like my skin is floating. I always carry an extra pair of socks and underwear just in case I forgot to do laundry at the house I’m going to. I carry my school bag and hope every night that everything I need for homework is already in it. Hopefully I carry my Precalculus textbook, although somehow that seems to be something I commonly forget. I carry my face wash. I always carry my face wash. If I forget to carry my face wash I will wake up the next morning and although it seems impossible ten giant, erupting volcanoes will have magically appeared on my face. It’s a great surprise at 7 o’clock in the morning.
I carry my wallet. Inside my wallet I carry my license. My license that I got in May of last year. People always seem to think their license picture is the most horrifying, hideous, disgusting picture ever taken. But they haven’t seen mine. For some reason I thought I wasn’t supposed to smile during the photo. Well, halfway through the picture being taken the old, grouchy man working at the District of Motor Vehicles told me I could in fact smile. It’s safe to say that closed mouth half smiles are not the most flattering of pictures. I carry around that disaster of a picture of myself everywhere I go. I also carry my debit card in my wallet. With my debit card, I also carry the responsibility of being the sole grocery shoppers of both my households seeing as I am always conveniently driving by the store when driving from house to house. -“Here can you get this stuff for me at the store I’ll transfer money into your account.”- I also carry my Shell gas card. This is because there are three Shell gas stations on route from my father’s house to my mother’s house. It’s convenient.
My car carries me back and forth. It carries me and all the things I carry. It carries my crumpled food bags on the grimy floor. Right where I left them when I was running late to class in the morning. Sad, brown bags that infuriate me because they don’t just magically disappear. Ugly, crumpled bags that make me feel gross about myself because they are from when I stop at Dunkin’ Donuts on my way to school. Those brown paper bags I carry stare into my soul and make me hate my lack of organization. I carry three chapsticks in my center console. One is cherry flavored. One is mint flavored. My favorite one is Burt’s Bees Ultra Conditioning. It makes my lips so soft I can’t stop rubbing them together. I carry a shovel just in case I get stuck in the snow in the middle of the night and bad guys are coming after me so I have to dig myself out. Oh and I always carry my yellow fuzzy blanket, the one with the burn holes in it from summer bonfires. I carry my yellow, fuzzy blanket just in case I get trapped in my car, and my car battery dies. I carry my dog Lily’s hair to my mom’s house, and my dog Teddy’s hair to my dad’s house.
I carry the guilt of leaving my mom after only spending 12 hours at her house, most of which I was doing homework for. I carry the guilt of leaving my mom because I would rather spend time with my friends. I carry the sadness of driving away from my parent after spending quality time with them. Everything I carry, I carry because I have to. I carry it all back and forth and back again. I used to resent that I ever had to carry anything back and forth. I resented that back and forth was even a thought in my mind.
Now, I do not mind everything I carry. It makes me who I am. I have learned to not hate myself for the Dunkin’ bag on the floor I got that one time I was feeling hungry and tired and lazy. It’s okay to let yourself eat something you don’t even like just because life is too complicated to figure something else out. Everything I carry makes me who I am, and as my mom always says, “You may not have it the easiest now, but one day you’ll be ahead of the game.”

His mangled body laid there on the shattered windshield. I should have run to someone or called someone, but all I could do was watch the pools of blood gathering on the hot dark pavement. I watched the warm red rivers flow like tears down a face. I watched until the river turned into a light rain. I watched each drop run off the bottom of the car and into the pools that had turned into oceans. I never knew a person had that much blood inside of them. I knew technically how many pints of blood every person has in their body, but I could never picture how much it really was. Until then. Then I could.
I remember the day very clearly. It was July of 1985 and I was eighteen years old. Although my nineteenth birthday was in three short weeks. That I remember very clearly. Finally, after years of sneaking around in friends basements. I, no lying no faking, could walk into The Big M corner store and ask for a six pack of Genesee. Then, I could go to the spot and drink them with the boys, and no cop could tell me nothing about it. I remember that day. It was hot. My girlfriend Margo and I had plans to go swimming down at a quarry to cool off. Her younger sister Janey had tagged along too as she often did. Margo seemed bothered every time their mother asked if Janey could join us in whatever adventure we had planned that day, but I didn’t mind. Janey liked The Police and we both knew the lyrics to every song. Not bad company at all. We all hoped in my van and started on our way. I popped Ghost in the Machine into the cassette player and rolled down my window. It was a hot day.
Margo was beautiful in every sense of the word. She was a short curvy girl. Her long dark hair was always tucked behind her left ear. Her ears that were pierced three times. She said she really only wanted them pierced in two places, but even numbers were a bad omen, so she settled with three. As we drove down the flat roads of upstate New York, I put my arm around her. Life was alright I thought to myself. It’s pretty alright.
I heard her screaming and screaming. All I could feel was the sun like lasers beaming down on my skin. I felt hot. It was a hot day. All I could feel was the lasers and all I could hear were the screams. “Janey shut up.” I finally said quietly. She kept screaming, and now her screams were more like moans and I could feel her terrified moans crawling into my skin. It was too much. “Janey shut up!” I was shouting now, “Shut the hell up.” It had all happened so fast and now I couldn’t think. Where had Margo gone? Maybe she went to get help. Yes, yes she went to get help. That is good.
The summer had been one to remember so far, and I knew after my birthday it was just going to get better. I had graduated with all my buddies and Margo in June and we were all headed off to different Universities in the fall. The last summer as a high school kid, but I wasn’t too disappointed. I had not appreciated my youth the way I should’ve. I wanted freedom, and independence, and to be a grown up. It all sounded like a pretty great deal. You do what you want, when you want to. I fantasized about being on my own, and that summer it was so close I could almost taste it. I had had a pretty great life up until then. My parents loved me, and my two brothers, and my sister. We all got along pretty well. It was easy. It was safe. I longed for adventure and experiences. Experiences that would change my life. Little did I know that summer would change it all.
We were a couple miles from the quarry. We were almost there. It all happened so fast. I turned a corner and… I want to say there was sound, a crash or a boom, but all I heard was white noise. I kind of buzzing in my head, and then screams. I saw him for a split second. For a split second I saw him alive. He was flying on an ATV head on to the front of my van. I saw him. If I saw him shouldn’t I have been able to swerve out of the way. I can’t remember why I didn’t swerve out of the way. Maybe there was no time, but I saw him. He was alive and then I blinked and he wasn’t. When I opened my eyes there was glass flying at my face. I should’ve have felt pain. But all I could feel was the heat. It was such a hot day.

In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the soldiers must carry a variety of things. Essentials like food, water, and a weapon, to the not so essential like yoyo’s, condoms, and marijuana. The thing I remember carrying was a little essential, and a little not so essential.

In any modern day city, like Boston, or New York, there are many ways to travel. You can take the subway, catch a bus, or drive through incredibly packed streets. I live in the small town of Minot, Maine. The last time I checked, we don’t have a bus line, and we definitely don’t have an underground subway. The only way to get around in rural Maine is to drive, and because of this I got my driver’s license in the spring of my sophomore year at Hebron.

To speed up the license process kids can go to drivers ed and get their driving permit at 15, and take their driver’s test at 16. My parents were adamant that I get my license as soon as possible, and I too was excited to be licenced. As I grew up, I began to harbor a thirst for independence so as not to worry about how I would get from point A to point B. I can remember the first time that I sat in the driver’s seat with Mr. Dingley, the driver’s ed teacher, in the spring of my freshman year at Hebron Academy. I was bursting with excitement and also confidence, mostly because I had driven before and knew what to expect, but I was also scared. I was just used to driving from my house to my grandmother’s just down the street, and I always drove the same car.

“What if this car was incredibly different than the one I was used to?” “What if I jerked the car a lot?”, and worst of all,“What if I crash?”.  

Long story short, it turned out okay. The car wasn’t that different. It took a little time to get used to, but I didn’t swerve, and most importantly, I didn’t crash into anything.  After 10 Driver’s Ed classes and 10 hours of physical driving, it was time for the permit test. If I passed this test, I would receive my permit, allowing me to drive a car on the road as long as an adult was with me. I took the test on Sunday morning, and it got graded right then and there. Mr. Dingley went up to the board after all the tests had been handed in, and began writing numbers. 41, 45, 43, 40, and 49. I believe the test was out of 50 points, and an 80% was required to pass making 40 the lowest possible score. I was the 49 on the board. I was one point away from getting a perfect score.

Six months later I went to the DMV for my driver’s license test. I failed. I tried so hard, but it was impossible. I had to stay at an exact speed, and pay attention to everything going on. Not to mention my nerves which were, to put it mildly, all over the place. The good news is that three months later I went back to try again. This time I was more ready than I have ever been for anything else in my entire life. I was determined to get that license, and I did.

Surprisingly it was a very anti-climactic moment. I was sitting in the car thinking that I hadn’t gotten my license when the guy said, “Congratulations!” I was speechless for a moment, and then asked, “I got it?”. He said, “Yes you did!”. He gave me a slip of paper that said,

“Temporary License – This is a valid Maine State License until the owner of License receives his/her permanent license in the mail.” It had other information on it as well, but that was the main gist.

Since I have gotten my license my life has changed dramatically. I was able to get a summer job because I could drive myself there, and I now drive to and from school, not having to worry if someone will be on time to pick me up. Most importantly, having my license has raised my level of maturity. I carry it everywhere I go, no matter what. Even if I’m not driving. Driving itself has taught me responsibility by following speed limits and road signs, when I could just as easily not follow the rules. To this day I have never been pulled over, going to show that hard work pays off, whether you’re a businessman, soldier, or a kid trying to get his license.

Hope lives at Hebron

It grows among the hearts.

It keeps the people free and true

To what they are apart.

The lives of all are bettered true

And never shift to wrong.

All that we shall ever do

Will echo from our song.

Each of us imbue our life

To each from left to right.

We glow in deepest brightest light

To win the day in our great fight.