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A place for Writing 12 students to read each other's writing, to critique, to suggest, to improve.
About Me
- Brad
- Former adult teacher who loves island beaches. Happy homebody and family man; once devoted dog owner, now without Tashi, my Tibetan Terrier. I prefer the absurdity of the imagination to the absurdity of imagining nothing.
3 comments:
Something different from the one I wrote in class:
The first time I held a man’s fate in my hands is etched in memory. On Vancouver Island in the 1990s my friend John and I went on a hike through rough, bushy wilderness high in Strathcona Park’s mountains. In those days, we navigated with map and compass—John was a whiz at seeing the shapes of the surrounding peaks and pointing them out to me, often using a twig he’d picked up from the ground to indicate that “knob” over there. Often, I failed to see the resemblance but John was usually right, usually . . .
This time, we were headed down from a high ridge. The night before, we’d camped beside a rocky glacial lake, its water clear, cold and lifeless. There had been only one place to put up a tent, on rock, with a decided slope on my side of the tent. John had found the lake and the campsite; how could I complain when, finally, after a long long day, John had found us a place to rest for the night?
That day had dawned hot and sunny. We didn’t know that our families were worried about us already since it had rained unrelentingly all that week a few thousand feet below. But we were above the clouds and heading home. As we descended, the ground began to slope away abruptly. Surely, we were headed for a cliff.
John always said that a “fifty foot cliff can hide in a hundred foot contour” and this day would prove him right. Ahead of me as always, John began a foolhardy descent. I proclaimed my uncertainty, but he was adamant that we could make it down.
Soon enough we found ourselves clinging to branches and sliding dangerously. It was then that it happened. John was ahead of me; I stood on a curved tree branch. He realized that below him was a fifty foot drop, and that if he continued he would fall. John panicked. It was then I knew that only I stood between him and disaster.
Our packs were lighter at the end of the trip, but not light by any means. Standing on that curved branch I needed all my strength to pull him back up. I did it, somehow. And when I did, John said only, “Thanks man!” Being a good friend, I didn’t mention my earlier suggestion to go around that “steep bit” to avoid danger.
My older sister liked to talk forever to her friend on the phone and I slipped a comment about her friend’s younger sister.
“Karen’s sister Melanie is in my grade 5 class and she’s kind of cute for a girl,” I said shyly.
Next thing you know my sister is playing matchmaker and asking her friend to convince her little sister a to go out for a movie date with me. Melanie and I both protested to our respective sisters to leave us alone but somehow they managed to convince us. By reminding us that we were going to see an actual movie of our choice (this was before video stores) with popcorn and candy, we reluctantly agreed.
Ok, I admit that at the time, something inside of my young body was saying, “this girl’s not bad to look at” I think going to see the Disney film “The Shaggy D. A.” and junk food was still my main incentive.
Well, the film was almost as bad as the actual date. We were both dropped-off in front of the theater and promptly and quietly bought our tickets and went inside. It was dark and crowded inside (in those days, movie theaters were big business) and the movie had started already. The only seats we could find quickly were single seats on either side of the walk way; so much for my first date.
Again, I should have kept my mouth shut when my sister eagerly asked,
“So, how did it go?”
I told her about the hasty seating arrangement and she never let me hear the end of it. Maybe, my sister wanted Melanie and I to get together so she could have even more in common with her best friend? I don’t know. All I know is that was my first date of shame.
-305 words
-The first:
There I was in the chapel with my family, not knowing what to do. Then suddenly, a person comes up and made a speech about my grandmother when she was alive. And from time to time, there would be a person crying and wailing at the back of the room. It was my first time ever I never wanted to go back.
-66 words.
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