Memoirs

-A Killer Broken leg

It was that time of year again. When my private school hosted its annual spring fund raiser. I was in the in the fifth grade and I was very excited about the upcoming fundraiser. This was the only thing students would talk about in the spring because every year there was a carnival theme. The carnival would be loaded with food, fun, and games. This year there was going to be an inflatable slide and this brought excitement to everyone’s years. My two best friends were Andrew and Dave; we were always doing some adventurous activities. Saturday was finally here and the fundraiser was going to start that afternoon. So arrive that afternoon and the first thing I notice before meeting Andrew and Dave was the smell of freshly popped popcorn.

-Super Good Feelings

I did it, I passed the driver exam. I was now a licensed driver and excited to be able to finally to be able to cruise without my parents. My car, was a 1991 Mazda 626, it was white with blue cloth interior and a sun roof. I thought driving by myself was the coolest thing and it was. After I got my license, I purchased a parking pass at Cookeville High School, which was the school I attended since there is only one high school in the city I lived in. It was late spring when I first drove by myself to school, on my way to school I drove with all of my windows down included the sun roof and the wind left like freedom. I was also listening to Tokyo Police Club, and the music was just blasting out of my little white car.

-Black Diamonds Can Get You

We took the ski lift up the slope again at Winter Place, West Virginia. This was a winter retreat with my church, Trinity Assembly. I was in the seventh grade and this was the first time I had ever been skiing. I remember first stepping onto the slopes for the very first time that day, thinking how anyone could ever ride down these massive hills. I began the day off by skiing on the bunny slopes and I just fell in love with skiing. As the day went on I got progressive better but I was still nothing less than a beginner. I took a break from skiing around 5:00 that afternoon to eat in the lodge. While in the lodge eating one of our youth leaders Scott asked if I would like to ski with him that night. I agreed, so after dinner we hit the slopes again but this time we took the ski runs that Scott wanted to do. So we were waiting in line to get on the lift and we join Steven and Dave my friends from church.

"Us and Them" and "Mick Jagger Wants Me"

In David Sedaris memoir “Us and Them”, Sedaris is obsessed with spying on the Tomkey’s his neighbors. The Tomkey’s attracted Sedaris’s attention when his mother tells them that the Tomkey’s do not believe in television. Sedaris starts to analyze the word belief and cannot grasp the idea of the Tomkey’s not owning a television, he believes that they are ignorant and up to no good. So Sedaris begins to gradually spy on the Tomkey’s but notices that they are rather boring and could not possibly be up to no good. He still continues to spy on them because he feels sorry for them since they are not well educated without a television but his spying is interrupted when the Tomkey’s start going to the lake every weekend. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year and Sedaris is disappointed to know that the Tomkey’s would be out of town and he would not be able to disguise himself and go to the door trick-or-treating. Instead the Tomkey’s came to Sedaris’s house after Halloween to trick-or-treat but Sedaris’s mother is out of candy so she asks Sedaris and his two sisters to go them some candy. Sedaris does not want to share is candy though but his mother forces him to give it up. By doing this Sedaris learns that he is actually a generous person by giving the candy he had collected to his neighbors.

“Mick Jagger Wants Me” by Susan Jane Gilman is a very interesting memoir. I just love the all the attention grabbing details in this memoir, “people were taking speed, smoking grass, dropping acid, making out with whoever was around”, and this just keeps the attention of the reader very involved. Besides the interesting details, I like the way Michelle and Susie are just infatuated with the Rolling Stones. I adore Susie’s sincere obsession with Mick Jagger. She always dreams about how beautiful she would be if she was his girl and how life could not be anymore self satisfying. Even though he obsessed with him, she will not promote herself as being overly obsessive fans “who would wait all night on a urine-drenched sidewalk wait for him with a carnation and autograph book”. Susie was going to be more classy than that, so she decides to go home and I commend her that.