Connor's Story

Connor’s Story

Here is a short story written by me

Connor Schmidt was a very nice boy from the outskirts of Chicago. Unlike his peers he was not very wealthy and his family had to work for what they had. Connor and his dad had a special connection because his mom ran away on his seventh birthday. Connor did not know her very well, but her absence was like a hole in his heart.  It was very difficult for Connor and his dad to spend time together because his dad worked sixty hours a week, but when he was home they spent their nights watching tv and playing catch in his backyard. His favorite baseball team was the Cubs.  He had never been to a Cubs game because his family could not afford it. Every night he would dreamt about catching a home run ball at Wrigley Field. Despite the Cubs being awful for the better part of a century his love for the team was steadfast.   

            Today was the day, Sunday, April fourth, Connor’s birthday. Connor woke up to find three presents sitting on the kitchen table. Instead of opening them up on the spot he decided to wait until his father woke up. When his father marched down the stairs Connor tore open his presents to find a new baseball glove and a video game. The last present was two bleacher seats to the that afternoon's Cubs game. Connor was ecstatic. This was the best birthday that he could have possibly wished for. Connor and his father took the Metra downtown where they walked to Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field was large and overwhelming, and it was everything that Connor dreamed about.

           

Connor had little butterflies in his stomach as he passed through the ticket line. This is the way that he dreamed his first Cubs game would go. They sat down in their seats in time for the national anthem. The atmosphere  Wrigley Field was electric. The singing of the national anthem put chills down Connor's spine. The capacity crowd was ready to start the season. The game began and the Cubs ace Christian Hernandez took the mound. The game went as planned for Connor and his dad. The Cubs were winning three to one going into the top of the ninth inning as closer Martin Jones took the mound. The weather was perfect and the environment was perfect; it was all going according to plan. This had been the best day of Connor’s life. The pitcher, Jones immediately got two outs but he walked the next two batters. The next batter was the opposing team’s power hitter, Carlos Fernandez. Connor was getting nervous and his dad had to assure him that the Cubs were going to win. The count went to one ball and two strikes. The Cubs were on the verge of victory when Fernandez hit one high and deep to left center. Connor reached his glove out, and he caught the ball! As he caught the ball he was locked into a whirlwind of emotion. He immediately hugged his dad and thanked him. He was filled with excitement when he started hearing the familiar “throw it back” cheer. The fans were like bullies to Connor, and he was backed into a corner.  Connor did not know what do to, should he throw it back ruining his dream scenario, or should he keep the ball? Connor had always dreamt of catching a home run; the ball meant something special to him. It was a dream come true for him to catch a home run at Wrigley Field. The day had gone perfectly up until this point. The fans around him screamed and yelled; it felt like they were taking their anger out on Connor. He wanted to throw it back, but he just couldn't let it go. 

            The train ride home was miserable. On the ride home he was noticed and spoken to by at least ten people who realized that he was the same kid from the game. They said things like, “you entitled prick, why didn’t you throw the ball back? Are you a fake fan?” Connor’s dad tried to comfort him the whole time but it all went to waste. Connor just broke down while riding the train. Connor’s dad felt bad that Connor’s special day went extremely wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it.

            The next day at school Connor’s friends made fun of him because he was featured on ESPN as a Cubs fan crying because the team lost. It seemed like this incident at the Cubs game would haunt him forever. He got through the school day and his dad was there when he got home. "Who cares what they said. I would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes." 1

little hitler

The littlest hitler is an interesting story about a boy who dresses up as hitler for halloween. Little Hitler wears a swastika, and the whole nine. The popular girl at school dressed up as Anne Frank. The girl dressed as Anne Frank gets in a fight with little hitler and it causes him to take his costume off. To me, I felt like this story was very disturbing. I do kind of feel bad for the kid, his mom ran away and his job runs a work studio through the living room. The kid lived in a small town with only 1 jewish family, and yet he and his dad think that it is ok to wear a hitler costume for halloween. I am really disappointed by this and I feel like he should not have dressed up as hitler for halloween. I was surprised that the kid even had the gonads to wear the costume.

When I was nine, I was at family camp. On my way back to the cabin and I pooped my pants.

A good man is hard to find

This short story is about a family road trip that goes wrong. On the road trip the family car spins out on the way to a house that does not exist. They try to get someone to stop and help them and the people that do are the "misfit" and his crew. The misfit has recently escaped from prison, and everyone in the family knows it. The misfits crew ends up killing everybody. This story tells me that people cannot be trusted. The grandmother of the family has a conversation with the misfit about his upbringing and christianity, and the grandmother starts to believe that he is a good person until his crew shoots three members of their caravan. The grandmother started to trust the misfit, and she got "shot down". (pun intended)

the title of the story is significant because on the surface it means one things and under the surface it means another. When I read the title of the story I thought it would be about love, and a women who gets her heartbroken, but the title takes on a different meaning. The grandmother thinks she has found a good man, but he ends up killing her. 

where are you going where are you from?

In this reading the main character Connie is a shy girl who is given ample freedom by her parents. One night while out with friends a gold car drives by and the driver says that he's going to get her. At the time Connie doesn't think much of the incident but the driver shows up in her driveway on a sunday afternoon. When Arnie shows up at her house she is kind of shy. They talk, and she begins to feel comfortable with him until Connie realizes that Arnie and his friend are much older then her. She tells them to go away, and they threaten her. In my opinion this is a textbook situation when a privileged guy tries to take advantage of a girl. Arnie's arrogance is telling of his socioeconomic class, and he makes comments about Connie's rundown house. This situation is very sad, and I hope that it has never happened in real life.

song: date rape by sublime

“Come on babe it’s your lucky day/ Shut your mouth, were gonna do it my way/ Come on baby don’t be afraid/ if it wasn’t for date rape I’d never get laid.” -Arnie Friend

ps) I just googled songs about rape 

A & P-updike

The short story A & P is about a cashier's experience at a cape cod grocery store when three young ladies walk into his store. One of them is beautiful, one of them is a butter face and the other is fat. Updike takes us through the girls experience in the store in great detail from the point of view of the cashier. The cashier immediately is all over them. He follows their every move and when they disappear into the other side of the store he describes it as a pinball game because he never knows where to look for them again. The cashier spends ten minutes describing how beautiful this women is, and he loves the way she acts describing the leader of the pack as a queen. At the end of their department store visit the cashier's boss tells the girls that they should be fully clothed while at the store instead of wearing bathing suits. the cashier, Sammy, in search of recognition from the girls quits his job. This story tells me that you should never search for recognition from others, and that if you try hard enough it will come.

All this while, the customers had been showing up with their carts but, you know, sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up on Stokesie, who shook open a paper bag as gently as peeling a peach, not wanting to miss a word. I could feel in the silence everybody getting nervous, most of all Lengel, who asks me, "Sammy, have you rung up this purchase?"

I like the passage above because of the terrific descriptions of the store and what was happening. 

This passage is important because it describes the awkwardness after Lengel(the boss) confronted the girls about their attire. 

man with big wings

I did not really understand this reading. I am normally able to catch onto short stories but I was not able to catch on to this one. I feel like I annotated it very thoroughly but it didn't really make sense to me. From what I caught, man with enormous wings is about an old sailor who survived a shipwreck, the rest of the story is about how people come to see him from faraway place. Personally this story had little to no meaning to me, and it didn't hit home at all. In order for a short story to be interesting it has to have a decent and somewhat inspiring hook, and the rest of the story has to build off the hook. The man with enormous wings's story did not build off the hook, and that made me lose interest.

3 questions
1. What do crabs have to do with this story?
2. why would they keep the "angel" captive
3. why would a family make people pay to see an angel

Half a day

my reactions, the short story half a day is about a persons life. The story starts out in first person and it details a snippet in time. It then fast forwards through his life, and it talks about his reminiscence about his school. I feel like the story is the grandpa reminiscing about his life and education. He feels like his schooling was the only non monotonous part of his life and that his life after school was a boring blur.

How to date a halfie… -Diaz

How to date a halfie is a first person short story from the perspective of a teenager who is giving advice on dating girls from different races. The story is funny, and I like how it is very down to earth. Diaz's story also talks about the differences from white people to half's to blacks. It is very realistic and it sticks to what I have observed. For example he talks about how white girls parents are very overprotective. He uses strategies and tactics with the girls, for example he takes girls to spanish restaurants and he orders in spanish. He talks about how neighborhood girls aren't fazed by the kids in the neighborhoods.   Instead of mentioning and referencing specific situations Diaz generalizes all types of girls, and he thinks the same about each race, and he tells the audience what happens in each situation.

my dating advice: pull the sword out whenever possible ;)

Happy Endings-Artwood

Happy Endings is a interesting story about how life ends up. It details how selfish, and complacent people can be. The story details two happy stories and 4 sad ones, while the ending to each story is the same. The underlying message of the short stories is how books, and stories only mention what, what, and what and they all have happy endings. The last line of the short story tells us that all stories are the same, and that they are only separated by the how and the why. Artwood also mentions that plots are mostly generic as well, and that all of them end up in the same way, and that the only thing distinguishing stories is the how and the why. The stories inside of the short story only detail events, and not the how and the way, Artwood argues that these stories are all the same because they have the same ending.


my alternate ending: John and Mary are put together by over-eager friends. Neither of them really like each other but the relationship is kept together by threads of lust. Three years go by, and they are married with small children, but John is seen with a colleague. Mary files a divorce, and John leaves town.  Mary marries a man named Dave. Dave is loyal and rich, they move to Florida and the story finishes up like A.

And of Clay We are Created

The short story And of Clay We are Created is about a news reporter who follows a volcano, and the reporter forms a special bond with a girl trapped in the rubble. The girl eventually has to die because nobody was able to secure a pump that would allow her to be rescued.

my reaction: This was a very interesting short story and it made me think about the connections that reporters make when they are covering natural disasters. The bond that the reporter has with the trapped person unlocks connections with his childhood. I like how the trapped girl made the reporter think about himself as a person. I experienced this when I went on a mission trip over the summer, and I was able to make a difference in their life, while they made bigger differences in ours. I like how the trapped girl opened up to the reporter and told him that nobody really loved her. I like this because the author shows that the reporters company made a difference on her life.

my link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/31/2-year-old-calls-999-riley-ward_n_5065504.html?utm_hp_ref=good-news&ir=Good%20News

The story of an hour

The story of an hour was a very interesting moment in time. Mrs. Mallard's husband was killed in a train crash, instead of being extremely upset Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed because she is free from him. Upon hearing the news she says, "Free, body and soul free!!!" I thought this was kind of creepy that she was waiting for her husband to die so she could be free. This was very selfish of her, and I feel like it was kind of creepy how she was waiting for her husband to die.