Samantha Cole
Accel English 12
A block
The Long Journey Ahead
( The Bean Trees, Friday Night Lights)
There was nothing but my bug, the open road, and I. The only other thing besides nature was the welcome to Kentucky sign in the distance behind me. This was my escape I needed to get out of here, I was going to drive and drive until my bug wouldn't let me anymore. I was so exhausted, the long stretch of road looked never ending. Then I saw a sign that said Welcome to Arizona, and a small little coffee shop just up the road. I walked inside, and sat down at a small table in the back. The waiter came over and I swear I had seen him before.
“Mike? Mike Winchell?” I asked. “It’s me Missy, well now I go by Taylor.” I hadn't seen Mike since I was a little girl, when I used to live in Texas. “Missy! Hey, how are you?” Mike asked me. “ I'm alright, as you can see i left Texas, i live in Kentucky now, well actually i just left there too. i think I'm going to stay here in Arizona.” “How are you, what brings you here Mike?” “I played football all through high school, we even made it to semi finals for states, but then we lost. Now I'm here looking at a college to play ball at. I'm working here part time to make a little money.” Mike explained. Mike had always loved football, even when we were growing up. “So how come you came to Arizona, um Taylor, right?” Mike asked. “ Well mama isn't too happy with me leaving home, but i wanted better for myself. Every girl in high school was dropping out cause they were pregnant, i didn't want that kind of life.” i explained. Mike nodded understandingly. “ Well I'm glad you made a smart decision. Lately I've been thinking that my decisions aren't so smart. I'm never going to get onto the college ball team, what was i thinking?” Ive never seen Mike so disappointed before.
I told Mike to sit down, and have a cup of coffee with me, i couldn't leave until i knew that he had his head held high. “ Do you remember when we were little kids Mike? and you used to make me play ball with you everyday, that's all you ever did. You loved it, and you still do. You've got to go after your dreams Mike, I know you can do it, its what you love. Just promise me one thing, that you’ll try?” Mike just starred down with a blank face for awhile, then he looked up at me and said, “okay.” “You're more successful than me, at least you finished high school, i dropped out and practically ran away.” i explained to him.
“ Well, you better get back to work, i don't want to get you fired. I should probably get back on the road anyways.” I said. “ thank you Taylor, I'll see you around, it was great to see you.” Mike said. I smiled and walked out of the shop. As i got to the car i noticed something moving in the back seat, it was a baby. I couldn't tell the gender, and it looked as though it had been abused. I didn't know what to do, except to take it with me. I couldn’t believe someone would do this. I started up the bug and drove off into the distance. “This is going to be a long journey ahead of me” I whispered to myself.
I enjoyed reading this story. I think it was an interesting concept to have Mike from Friday Night Lights living in Arizona, one of the main settings in The Bean Trees . It was believable to me that Mike and Taylor had known each other their whole lives. The dialogue that the writer used supported the relationship between the two characters. Although the characters are from completely different stories, I still pictured two old friends sitting in a coffee shop, reminiscing and looking back on their childhoods together.
ReplyDeleteThe setting was most vividly described in the opening paragraph of the essay. There was convincing vocabulary that helped me picture the actual setting that was described in the book itself. The first lines in the essay read “There was nothing but my bug, the open road, and I. The only other thing besides nature was the welcome to Kentucky sign in the distance behind me.” This line stood out to me not only because it opened the essay, but because I read The Bean Trees as one of my summer reading books and could actually picture Taylor driving out of her home town to set out on her long journey. I think that this quote would lead any reader to imagine the scene with Taylor in her VW bug, regardless of whether they read the actual novel or not.
The conversation between the two characters was believable. The dialogue was the type of dialogue that would be natural between two people who used to be good friends. It was easy for me to read without being confused, and I pictured hearing the conversation between Mike and Taylor if I had been sitting at the table next to them in the little coffee shop. Even though I did not read Friday Night Lights, I still found Mike’s participation in the story’s dialogue very authentic-seeming. The only thing I would change about the dialogue section would be adding clues as to who said what. There were no clues as to who exclaimed what inside the thread of dialogue.
I think the writer’s intentions were somewhat blurred by a few minor capitalization errors. Things like “I” were not capitalized in all of the places they were used, and there were a few other spelling errors as well. It didn’t seem that the errors took away from the story itself, but they distracted me a few times while I was reading. Next time, try using the Microsoft Word options for spelling and grammar check. It is a very helpful tool for me when writing an essay.