Don't remember the date. This was an assignment for the Institute of Children's Literature, a course by mail that I took at the turn of the century. They actually paid me $35 (I still have a copy of the check) to use it in an upcoming manual.
The twilight hours of the Fourth of July in Goose Creek exploded with the traditional fireworks. The event brought many out of their homes on that warm summer evening. Vehicles of various hue burst through the intersections, scattered into stuffed lots, searched for a front row seat. A siren blared in the background. Clusters of people gathered around cars, spread out on blankets, settled into lounge chairs. The populace was prepared for the presentation.
Firecrackers snap-crackle-popped in surroundsound. Bottle rockets screamed. Miniature starbursts leaped out of the north, south, east, and west. A yellow and pink clad, ponytailed, little girl jumped up and down, pointing out the impromptu pre-shows. A thin scent of gunpowder drifted past my nose as I noticed a single bright star positioned above the powerlines.
All around us the beds of trucks and backs of vans had become temporary theater boxes. We ourselves were not too uncomfortable in the slight humidity, sitting in the back of our mini-van with the hatch up, munching pretzels and drinking Mountain Dew and ginger ale.
And then without announcement, a short volley of whistling red and green lit the northwestern sky directly above the Westview Middle School parking lot. After a short moment, blazing white shooting stars dripping smoke soared into the air. Bursts of red, white, and blue. A bang of bright green. Puffy white spheres snaked through the darkness. Fireflies of orange, then a glimmer of silver hung in the air. A muffled BOOM. The evening train shouted back a reply. A glittering bang as bright emerald lights shifted to purple.
A young boy cried, burying his smudgy face in his mother’s leg. The younger sibling in the mother’s arms seemed unaffected.
Green dots were scattered into the sky; gold dust fell back to the ground. A massive explosion sent shock waves that rocked the van. Green crackles were pushed aside by a big red starburst. Pop! Pop! Pop! Golden poprocks in the sky. A massive multicolored disco ball of light hung in the sky and a group of boys nearby all exhaled an OOH.
A fountain of silver sequins fell before the finale—an onslaught of colors that echoed off the storefronts. Blinding strobelight flashes shot out from a shower of white, a burst of blue, FLASH, green, white, red, FLASH, FLASH, BOOM, red and blue, BOOM, FLASH, orange, white, FLASH, FLASH.
The sky fell silent. We waited for more. People walked down the sidewalk carrying or wearing glowing neon bands of blue and red and green and yellow that must have been purchased at an earlier event. A whoop burst from a passing vehicle. An officer’s whistle guided traffic out into the streets and through the intersection to form a long line back to our house.
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
By the Water's Edge
No Date
A cool breeze. The scent of pine. The stillness of the water. Birds play at the water's edge. Dragonflies dart through the reeds. Fish hide under lily pads. A weekend camping trip by the lake? No…my less than a quarter acre backyard with pond.
When I first bought the house, the only things in the backyard were a couple of crepe myrtles in the far corners, a few small red-tips along the edge of the property, and a lone mimosa smack in the middle. The mimosa died soon after I moved in and had to be removed. The backyard was dubbed “the great Savannah plain” by my wife Lynn and daughter Carrie because it was so wide open.
I planted some pine, a few cedar, and a willow to get a woodland feel and some shade. It needed something else. One Saturday when I had nothing else to do, I took the better part of the day to dig a hole where the mimosa used to be. (Being not in good shape, I thought it would take several days.) It has been a work in progress since.
What has been surprising is the amount of enjoyment we as a family have received from this hole filled with water. Watching the growth of plants in and around the pond is a source of constant wonder. My green thumb is more a shade of brown. We're often amazed at the height of the reeds transplanted from a nearby ditch, some over six fee; the many leaves of water lilies that cover over a third of the pond; and the yellows, reds, and pinks of the flowering cactus, caladiums, and water lilies.
In the morning or early evening, we like to feed the fish—originally about a dozen 24 cent goldfish, now grown to 5-6 inches. Sometimes we do this as a family (dog included), sometimes alone; but there always seems to be something peaceful…soothing…in watching these huge goldfish swim about sucking up the flattened flakes of food. One winter the pond actually froze over and we watched as they swam about under the ice. In the spring, we look expectantly for baby fishes. Many have survived, in a variety of colors other than gold (some with black, some all brown, one or two white), to become part of our school.
Spring also heralds the arrival of an amphibian or two. Our youngest daughter, Catherine, has seen first hand as scores of eggs become tiny tadpoles. Not all of the eggs make it that far and only a few of the tadpoles get very big. I believe visiting birds or the fish have enjoyed a tasty delicacy. Even so, the deep throated songs of the adults serenade our suburban home with a nighttime woodland lullaby.
Our little pool has also hosted a variety of winged creatures. We've seen the glistening blue-black crow, brilliant red garbed cardinal, the somber dusty gray dove. The pond has become their little Greek public bath, their mini Irish pub; a place to meet for a dip and a drink. But my favorite winged guests have to be the dragonflies. Metalic blues and greens zipping through the reeds; hovering on crystaline wing over lily pads; resting in the sun on a rock—these beautiful insects add aerial life to the still water.
But the birds and fish and frogs aren't the only ones who like to play in the water. On hot summer days, Catherine and her friends love to sit on the edge and soak their feet. I fixed a place just for that purpose—I knew the temptation would be too great. There are also stepping stones to cross or squat on to watch the fish. Our grandsons, Arthur, 3, and Ethan, 1, are constantly intrigued by the water's edge. (I get up a lot to make sure they don't try to walk on water.)
Our backyard pond certainly is a great source of enjoyment, aesthetically and educationally, for the entire family. But you know, I wouldn't pass up an occasional weekend camping trip by the lake.
A cool breeze. The scent of pine. The stillness of the water. Birds play at the water's edge. Dragonflies dart through the reeds. Fish hide under lily pads. A weekend camping trip by the lake? No…my less than a quarter acre backyard with pond.
When I first bought the house, the only things in the backyard were a couple of crepe myrtles in the far corners, a few small red-tips along the edge of the property, and a lone mimosa smack in the middle. The mimosa died soon after I moved in and had to be removed. The backyard was dubbed “the great Savannah plain” by my wife Lynn and daughter Carrie because it was so wide open.
I planted some pine, a few cedar, and a willow to get a woodland feel and some shade. It needed something else. One Saturday when I had nothing else to do, I took the better part of the day to dig a hole where the mimosa used to be. (Being not in good shape, I thought it would take several days.) It has been a work in progress since.
What has been surprising is the amount of enjoyment we as a family have received from this hole filled with water. Watching the growth of plants in and around the pond is a source of constant wonder. My green thumb is more a shade of brown. We're often amazed at the height of the reeds transplanted from a nearby ditch, some over six fee; the many leaves of water lilies that cover over a third of the pond; and the yellows, reds, and pinks of the flowering cactus, caladiums, and water lilies.
In the morning or early evening, we like to feed the fish—originally about a dozen 24 cent goldfish, now grown to 5-6 inches. Sometimes we do this as a family (dog included), sometimes alone; but there always seems to be something peaceful…soothing…in watching these huge goldfish swim about sucking up the flattened flakes of food. One winter the pond actually froze over and we watched as they swam about under the ice. In the spring, we look expectantly for baby fishes. Many have survived, in a variety of colors other than gold (some with black, some all brown, one or two white), to become part of our school.
Spring also heralds the arrival of an amphibian or two. Our youngest daughter, Catherine, has seen first hand as scores of eggs become tiny tadpoles. Not all of the eggs make it that far and only a few of the tadpoles get very big. I believe visiting birds or the fish have enjoyed a tasty delicacy. Even so, the deep throated songs of the adults serenade our suburban home with a nighttime woodland lullaby.
Our little pool has also hosted a variety of winged creatures. We've seen the glistening blue-black crow, brilliant red garbed cardinal, the somber dusty gray dove. The pond has become their little Greek public bath, their mini Irish pub; a place to meet for a dip and a drink. But my favorite winged guests have to be the dragonflies. Metalic blues and greens zipping through the reeds; hovering on crystaline wing over lily pads; resting in the sun on a rock—these beautiful insects add aerial life to the still water.
But the birds and fish and frogs aren't the only ones who like to play in the water. On hot summer days, Catherine and her friends love to sit on the edge and soak their feet. I fixed a place just for that purpose—I knew the temptation would be too great. There are also stepping stones to cross or squat on to watch the fish. Our grandsons, Arthur, 3, and Ethan, 1, are constantly intrigued by the water's edge. (I get up a lot to make sure they don't try to walk on water.)
Our backyard pond certainly is a great source of enjoyment, aesthetically and educationally, for the entire family. But you know, I wouldn't pass up an occasional weekend camping trip by the lake.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Turning Night Into Day
March 2009
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
This was written as an assignment for my English Comp I class at Trident Technical College. My instructor suggested that I submit it to the new school student anthology.
The atrocities committed upon the Jewish peoples in the early twentieth century are widely known and well documented. Elie Wiesel is one voice among thousands declaring the inhumanity of those times upon his people and himself. At the impressionable age of 16, he suffered the loss of his father to starvation at the Buchenwald concentration camp, as well as the deaths of his mother and younger sister in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Wiesel vowed to not speak for ten years of the torturous brutalities he and ten thousand other prisoners endured (Hurst and Pavlick). His silence ended when he penned Un di Velt Hot Geshvihn (And the World Was Silent), the original Yiddish version of Night in 1954 (McDonald and Trotter 506). Night asserts that what Elie Wiesel witnessed as a young teenager in the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald camps was the numbing effect of constant brutality and the threat of individual annihilation upon social conscience and personal faith. What he also recorded, however, as seen through the refining lens of hindsight, was the glimmer of hope within his people and possible redemption pictured in shadowed Christian symbolism.
In one chapter from Wiesel's account, the prisoners of the death camp are so numbed to the indescribable brutality around them that they are not merely unconcerned bystanders, but have also become willing participants. Wiesel depicts this condition when he tells of a young prisoner from Warsaw who is to be hanged for the crime of stealing. As the verdict is being read and the condemned youth stands defiantly before his executioners, their ability to be affected as a whole is demonstrated in the whispered question of a prisoner named Juliek: “Do you think this ceremony'll be over soon? I'm hungry…” (Wiesel 507). During this grave moment, Juliek's regard is for the prisoners' only meal: soup. Soup is their life. It is their sole concern. Soup is the currency of life. To preserve their own life “Two prisoners helped […] for two plates of soup” (Wiesel 507). The other prisoners do not seem to mind that their fellows assist. It has been said that if you do not resist evil you assist it. This saying speaks of this moment as the prisoners are no longer merely observers but have become actively involved in their own genocide.
Wiesel, on the other hand, though “no longer troubled” by the “thousands who had died […] in the crematory ovens” (Wiesel 507), experiences a re-awakening, if only briefly, of the threat to his life individually. The sheer numbers of the atrocities committed behind the closed doors of the crematory are desensitizing. “But this one […] he overwhelmed me.” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added) Wiesel writes that as he stood watching the Warsaw youth: “I could hear my heart beating” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added). Wiesel's reaction to this single life and his awareness of his own evokes a scenario in which he appears to feel that “This is a person. A vibrant individual. Soon to die. I am an individual. Alive. Death, brutal death, is a very real threat to me.” But the reality did not last. The numbness settled back over him, for when he returns from the execution for the evening meal he “remember[s] that I found the soup excellent that evening…” (Wiesel 508). He is still alive.
Although there are other hangings, it is the shock of executing a young child that produces a spark of humanity within the prisoners; but Wiesel looks upon the scene and loses faith in his God. This hanging is different from the ones before. The crowd spurns participation. There are no prisoners helping this time. As the chairs of the condemned are tipped over, Wiesel states that there is “Total silence throughout the camp” (Wiesel 509). There is no discussion of soup. This dying boy, dying an agonizing death, is more than the group conscience can bear. They openly weep. The “forgotten […] bitter taste of tears” (Wiesel 508) is fresh on their tongues. Unlike the hanging of the defiant Warsaw youth, this hanging touches their hearts. Wiesel, conversely, sees in the horror of this slow, tormenting death of “the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508) the death of his God. As the other other prisoners question where God is during this atrocity, Wiesel responds internally. “Where is He? […] He is hanging here on this gallows…” (Wiesel 509). He sees no other explanation for how this could be happening than that it is God himself being executed. And at the end of the day, even his life giving soup now “tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 509).
God hanging on a gallows. Wiesel himself may not have intended to use Christian symbolism to show the possibility of hope for the prisoners, but a powerful picture of redemption can be seen in the second execution. Author Dorothy Sayers once wrote:
God in the form of Christ hanging upon a cross is the central image of sacrificial redemption for the Christian faith. Wiesel describes this child as “the little servant, the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508). Likewise, Christ is often referred to as the Servant King. In another parallel, this “child with a refined and beautiful face […] would not speak” (Wiesel 508) before his torturers just as Jesus remained silent before his accusers. Additionally, this young innocent “struggl[ed] between life and death” (Wiesel 509) while hanging between two adult prisoners. Three gallows—three crosses. The hearts of the prisoners were rent in two even as the veil of the temple was rent when Christ died (Matthew 27:51). In Christianity, the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, is the symbol of redemption, the payment for and setting free from sin and guilt. Likewise, through the loss of this one, this innocent, many are given an opportunity to free themselves, their hearts and their humanity from the bondage of this insidious holocaust.
Loss. All who faced the threat of these unrelenting atrocities lost. The defiant youth and others—many others—lost their lives. Ten thousand captive bodies lost their sense of humanity, of compassion, of life beyond a bowl of soup. Wiesel lost his faith. Yet the loss of one life, though senseless and tragic, broke through to the hearts of these prisoners— prisoners of body, mind, and soul—offering an opportunity to be human again, redeeming them from the sin of complacency and freeing them to feel again.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
Works Cited
Hurst, John and James Pavlick. “Elie Wiesel Biography.”
Academy of Achievement ed. Hugh Esten. March 2, 2009.
American Academy of Achievement. March 6, 2009.
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1
McDonald, Ann, and Jack Trotter, eds. World Views: Classic
and Contemporary Readings. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2008.
Sayers, Dorothy. Introductory Papers on Dante. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Stella Rodway. McDonald and Trotter 506-09.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
This was written as an assignment for my English Comp I class at Trident Technical College. My instructor suggested that I submit it to the new school student anthology.
The atrocities committed upon the Jewish peoples in the early twentieth century are widely known and well documented. Elie Wiesel is one voice among thousands declaring the inhumanity of those times upon his people and himself. At the impressionable age of 16, he suffered the loss of his father to starvation at the Buchenwald concentration camp, as well as the deaths of his mother and younger sister in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Wiesel vowed to not speak for ten years of the torturous brutalities he and ten thousand other prisoners endured (Hurst and Pavlick). His silence ended when he penned Un di Velt Hot Geshvihn (And the World Was Silent), the original Yiddish version of Night in 1954 (McDonald and Trotter 506). Night asserts that what Elie Wiesel witnessed as a young teenager in the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald camps was the numbing effect of constant brutality and the threat of individual annihilation upon social conscience and personal faith. What he also recorded, however, as seen through the refining lens of hindsight, was the glimmer of hope within his people and possible redemption pictured in shadowed Christian symbolism.
In one chapter from Wiesel's account, the prisoners of the death camp are so numbed to the indescribable brutality around them that they are not merely unconcerned bystanders, but have also become willing participants. Wiesel depicts this condition when he tells of a young prisoner from Warsaw who is to be hanged for the crime of stealing. As the verdict is being read and the condemned youth stands defiantly before his executioners, their ability to be affected as a whole is demonstrated in the whispered question of a prisoner named Juliek: “Do you think this ceremony'll be over soon? I'm hungry…” (Wiesel 507). During this grave moment, Juliek's regard is for the prisoners' only meal: soup. Soup is their life. It is their sole concern. Soup is the currency of life. To preserve their own life “Two prisoners helped […] for two plates of soup” (Wiesel 507). The other prisoners do not seem to mind that their fellows assist. It has been said that if you do not resist evil you assist it. This saying speaks of this moment as the prisoners are no longer merely observers but have become actively involved in their own genocide.
Wiesel, on the other hand, though “no longer troubled” by the “thousands who had died […] in the crematory ovens” (Wiesel 507), experiences a re-awakening, if only briefly, of the threat to his life individually. The sheer numbers of the atrocities committed behind the closed doors of the crematory are desensitizing. “But this one […] he overwhelmed me.” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added) Wiesel writes that as he stood watching the Warsaw youth: “I could hear my heart beating” (Wiesel 507, emphasis added). Wiesel's reaction to this single life and his awareness of his own evokes a scenario in which he appears to feel that “This is a person. A vibrant individual. Soon to die. I am an individual. Alive. Death, brutal death, is a very real threat to me.” But the reality did not last. The numbness settled back over him, for when he returns from the execution for the evening meal he “remember[s] that I found the soup excellent that evening…” (Wiesel 508). He is still alive.
Although there are other hangings, it is the shock of executing a young child that produces a spark of humanity within the prisoners; but Wiesel looks upon the scene and loses faith in his God. This hanging is different from the ones before. The crowd spurns participation. There are no prisoners helping this time. As the chairs of the condemned are tipped over, Wiesel states that there is “Total silence throughout the camp” (Wiesel 509). There is no discussion of soup. This dying boy, dying an agonizing death, is more than the group conscience can bear. They openly weep. The “forgotten […] bitter taste of tears” (Wiesel 508) is fresh on their tongues. Unlike the hanging of the defiant Warsaw youth, this hanging touches their hearts. Wiesel, conversely, sees in the horror of this slow, tormenting death of “the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508) the death of his God. As the other other prisoners question where God is during this atrocity, Wiesel responds internally. “Where is He? […] He is hanging here on this gallows…” (Wiesel 509). He sees no other explanation for how this could be happening than that it is God himself being executed. And at the end of the day, even his life giving soup now “tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 509).
God hanging on a gallows. Wiesel himself may not have intended to use Christian symbolism to show the possibility of hope for the prisoners, but a powerful picture of redemption can be seen in the second execution. Author Dorothy Sayers once wrote:
If an image displays the universal pattern, it will display it at all levels and in all circumstances, whether the poet was or could have been conscious of these possible applications or not.(19)
God in the form of Christ hanging upon a cross is the central image of sacrificial redemption for the Christian faith. Wiesel describes this child as “the little servant, the sad-eyed angel” (Wiesel 508). Likewise, Christ is often referred to as the Servant King. In another parallel, this “child with a refined and beautiful face […] would not speak” (Wiesel 508) before his torturers just as Jesus remained silent before his accusers. Additionally, this young innocent “struggl[ed] between life and death” (Wiesel 509) while hanging between two adult prisoners. Three gallows—three crosses. The hearts of the prisoners were rent in two even as the veil of the temple was rent when Christ died (Matthew 27:51). In Christianity, the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, is the symbol of redemption, the payment for and setting free from sin and guilt. Likewise, through the loss of this one, this innocent, many are given an opportunity to free themselves, their hearts and their humanity from the bondage of this insidious holocaust.
Loss. All who faced the threat of these unrelenting atrocities lost. The defiant youth and others—many others—lost their lives. Ten thousand captive bodies lost their sense of humanity, of compassion, of life beyond a bowl of soup. Wiesel lost his faith. Yet the loss of one life, though senseless and tragic, broke through to the hearts of these prisoners— prisoners of body, mind, and soul—offering an opportunity to be human again, redeeming them from the sin of complacency and freeing them to feel again.
Trident Technical College, Copyright ©2009
Works Cited
Hurst, John and James Pavlick. “Elie Wiesel Biography.”
Academy of Achievement ed. Hugh Esten. March 2, 2009.
American Academy of Achievement. March 6, 2009.
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1
McDonald, Ann, and Jack Trotter, eds. World Views: Classic
and Contemporary Readings. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2008.
Sayers, Dorothy. Introductory Papers on Dante. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Stella Rodway. McDonald and Trotter 506-09.
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