The Rocky Road, By Wyatt Bishop

Hello reader, I’m about to tell you a story of some of my life. I am not normally one to volunteer details about myself, which I’ll remain somewhat reserved or completely leave some events out of this autobiography. Nonetheless, I believe I can still make my story interesting for the reader. I was born 1979, in Tampa, Florida; which, is also the same day my biological father decided to leave my mother and I. My mother isn’t a native Floridian, but had moved there with her family when she was still an infant, and had spent most of her life growing up in Florida. Needless to say, my father leaving was not an exciting time for my mother and I. Although she was employed Jimmy Cater was president and had taken the nation into

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

It all started on a warm sunny day, my dad had just arrived from Michigan. He came into the house gave my siblings, my mother and me a hug and told us the big news. “We are moving to Michigan” he said. He said it so calmly as if expecting my siblings, my mother and myself to react in a good way. Immediately I started to panic, I didn’t want to leave the place I grew up in. I was only eleven years old, I didn’t know how the people in Michigan would be. Finally I spoke “ I don’t want to move dad, I love it here!” which he responded with “I’m sorry but we are going to move because we can’t afford to live here anymore” He said this so emotionless as if not knowing how this could affect me. I hardly got any sleep that night for the fact that my parents were arguing for what felt like all night, but in reality was just an hour.

In Eric Foner’s, The Fiery Trail: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, is a biographical look at Abraham Lincolns life from when he was growing up in Kentucky all the way until his unfortunate demise as President. In this book, the authors view on the historical events that occurred during the 16th president’s life time are expressed and Lincoln’s changing view on slavery throughout his life time.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder focuses on the lives of the residents of small town Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in the early 1900s, more specifically, the lives of young George Gibbs and Emily Webb. Throughout Act I, Thornton describes the daily lives of the people of Grover’s Corners. The milkman delivers the day’s milk, the paperboy brings the morning paper, mothers prepare breakfast, and children get ready for school. The day winds down, everyone has had their supper, homework is finished, and adults arrive home from choir practice. Life in Grover’s Corners is traditional, ordinary, and unremarkable, not much goes on out of the ordinary. Act II focuses on love and marriage in the town. The narrator says “Almost everybody in the world gets married, - you know what I mean? In our town there aren’t hardly any exceptions. Most everybody in the world climbs into their graves married.” and Mrs. Gibbs articulates that “People are meant to go through life two by two. Tain’t natural to be lonesome.”(54) George and Emily get married, much like the other young couples of Grover’s Corners, and proceed to live blithely and contentedly on George’s uncle’s farm. Act III looks into the last act in a person’s life, death. Emily passes away during childbirth, and at the cemetery, she meets the spirits of her mother-in-law and many other deceased townspeople.

Crossroads at Clarksdale by Francoise Hamlin sketches the struggle to freedom for African Americans in Clarksdale, MS. Hamlin shares the stories of two successful African Americans at the forefront and how they work to become leaders in Clarksdale. From the 1950’s to the 1970s, college students, numerous organizations, and campaigns for social transformation fought hard battles for social and economic justice. In an attempt to withstand the social prejudices that were highly advocated in Mississippi African Americans were targeted for violence and degraded by Jim Crow laws that were inhumane and restricted their rights. Despite the poverty and inequality African Americans had to undergo, their slow struggle to freedom in Clarksdale was accompanied by accomplishments and relentless efforts for civil rights. Hamlin articulates in detail the situations that were occurring in the south, how the citizens were affected by the situations, and their responses to these situations.

1. Rooster Cogburn is also a man with true grit. Throughout this book True grit, Mattie Ross was told that Rooster was one the goodies marshals for the job to go after Tom Chaney. He was known as the meanest and show no merciless in his job and fear is not something in his thinking. He well loves shot if he has to that something that he loves to do. He brings his men’s alive and also believes that even the worst should have a say in court.(pg. 25) That is the self-esteem he has to motivated him to achieve his duty in getting keeping bad guys away. Rooster was a man that believe that seeking justices, which is doing the right thing was always Rooster motive. Also, Rooster has this attention or regard well doing his job is also make Rooster a stronger

If you were fourteen and your father was murdered in cold blood, would you want revenge? In the novel “True Grit” by Charles Portis there are characters who have grit but there are also characters who lack grit this novel takes place in the 1870’s post-civil war in Arkansas. According to Shmoop, Wikipedia, and Google True Grit is having passion, courage, and determination. Mattie Ross is a fourteen year old girl who will not listen to anyone and still goes on a long journey into Indian territory and is determined to avenge her father’s death. Throughout the book Mattie shows she has true grit. Tom Chaney on the other hand is the man who killed her father in cold blood and shows he lacks grit throughout the book. Rooster Cogbern is a U.S marshal

When I was 3 years old my mother and father got divorced. My father was abusive due to drugs and my mother couldn't handle it anymore. After my parents got divorced my sister Julie and I saw my father every other weekend. My father got more into drugs after the divorce and my sister and I didn’t get to see him much. When I was 7 years old my father got put in jail. Since my sister and I were only children we didn't understand why our father left. Our father was in and out of county jail during our life D.U.I’s, starting fights with people, hitting my mother. We didn’t know much about what our father did because he didn’t want us to know because we were too young. But my father was sentenced about 30 days in county jail. My sister and I missed

Charles Portis’ book, “True Grit,” published in 1968 contains the adventures of the late 1800s America as told in Mattie's plain style. Portis chronicles the character and perception of a young woman stuck between traditional culture and modernity. In line with Mattie's perception of the world, readers cannot help but appreciate the significance of Biblical motifs, particularly the ‘vengeful’ style of punishing sin as evident in the delivery of justice by law enforcement officers in the late 1800s Oklahoma Indian Territory (Butler 386). Portis also enriches the work with deadpan satire in some of rather cruel scenes of murder and punishment of the perpetrators in the late nineteenth century society to enhance readability. This paper examines the accuracy in the depiction of law enforcement within the Oklahoma Indian territory in the late 1800's in the novel.

Throughout my life I never really had parents; coming home to a drug abuser who was constantly zoned out was a normal day. I wasn't loved or even thought of as a child. My biological parents never once came to my awards or conferences. I used to lie to my childhood friends and say that my parents had to constantly work. In reality they didn't care at all.As a child I had both of my parents; when I grew up everything collapsed. I was in 7th grade when I realized that my life would change dramatically. My biological mother fell deeply into drugs, as for my biological father he left without saying anything. At the age of 12 , I was placed with a family friend, while my biological mother was in rehabilitation.

Throughout the journey of this class a lot of pieces we have read stuck out me but only in bits and pieces the story that held the most ground and really stuck with me as a whole had to be the "Off the Road story" by Daniel Duayne. Simply because the author uses the truck as a metaphor for troubled times and have to make big decisions in your life that may be very hard for you to do or letting go of someone or something that you were not ready to let go of.

The landscape of a post-apocalyptic society contains nothing to live for, it is a world without the people you love, without sun, flowers or food; only lawlessness, fear and uncertainty of survival. McCarthy creates a post apocalyptic world in his book, “The Road,” that addresses the issues of our time by illustrating the fears of society and the violence that accompanies them. These fears at the time were most recently initiated by the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq war and the resulting violence experienced both in America and around the world. McCarthy’s “The Road” is a worst-case scenario, in which the broad American view that we are invincible and our principles are infallible is challenged. And with the violence in today’s

Where should I even begin? I wish I could pin-point exactly when the chaos began. Unfortunately, I cannot. I am a first generation college student. I have grown up in a family that consisted of two parents and three older sisters. The good thing I can say is that we are complete, but we aren’t exactly a “whole.” My sisters’ and I grew up under a belt held by my father. To this day I can still recall my early days as a child when I witnessed my father abused my mother, my sister, and then eventually me. It was a mix of physical and emotional abuse. An abuse only children are able to bear due to the love they have for their parents.

American history teaches us that, going west has always been a regarded as progression. From the earliest settlers to the “new land” to the idea of Manifest Destiny, progressive movement and thinking has always traveled west. The west is always thought of as being more liberal more free. “True West” A compelling play written by Sam Shepard, developed characters that “struggle to define and assert their identities.” <1702> By using the idea of going west Shepard’s play’s “ present a picture of America torn between its idealistic values and the painful realties of frontier paved over for a parking lot, and cowboys enclosed in a move and television screen.”<1702> By comparing and contrasting the lead characters Austin and Lee, Shepard shows the reader that “going west” does not always mean a change in the right direction.