XI A CAR IN THE WOODS Nate trudged up the incline through thick underbrush. The wild growth looked cool from the house, but hiking in them became a chore. The sound of a creek that ran parallel to the road acted as his compact. He couldn't always see the creek, but the gurgling shallow water rushing across the rock bottom would help him find his way back to the farm. According to Hannah, it was common long ago for large estates to have a private cemetery. They agreed that Nathan Freedman was probably buried in such a place, somewhere on the land. A long shot, but one worth taking. Deciding it best not to tell his grandparents, Nate snuck out after breakfast to search the woods for a long forgotten overgrown cemetery. With a stick he fashioned into a staff, he probed the ground for any remnant of a burial site. But an hour into the search and he had uncovered nothing. Anything that looked like a vine covered fence, or a grave marker, erect or fallen, he investigated. From where he stood above and away from the creek, he could see that the land flowing beneath the canopy of trees. In the groves of maples, oaks, and evergreens, a carpet of leaves and fallen branches littered the ground. The thinning undergrowth made him think it would be a better choice for a search, but he would have to find another way to keep his bearing. The trees would probably muffle the sound of running water. With this new plan in mind, he turned and headed back to the farm. He'd worn cargo pants and a long sleeved shirt to protect against insect bites, scratches from thorny vines, and the threat of poison ivy. It all work to make him miserable, hot and sweaty though. Already he missed the feel of air co... ... middle of paper ... ...t was beautiful out here. Maybe these people hadn't realized they were on private land. Or maybe they realized it, so had picked the odd parking spot. Spotting something on the passenger seat, Nate continued to peer inside. What looked to be the sleeve of an airline ticket had been left open. This person had recently taking a flight on the same airline as he. Nate squinted against the glare off the glass to get a better look at the flight number. Flight 417. Whoa, Nate straightened and immediately froze. Beside his own reflection in the car window, a second reflection loomed behind him. Nate wondered if that warning about object being closer than they looked applied to the window as well. Because if so, he was in big trouble. He stood as still as he could, the way he heard you should if you were ever stupid enough to be hiking in the woods and ran into a bear.
He fig-ured that the normal half hour walk home might take as long as two hours in snow this deep. And then there was the wind and the cold to contend with. The wind was blowing across the river and up over the embankment making the snow it carried colder and wetter than the snow blanketing the ground. He would have to use every skill he’d learned, living in these hills, to complete the journey without getting lost, freezing to death, or at the very least ending up with a severe case of frostbite be-fore he made it back to Ruby.
Vaughan, Joyce. "John (J.W.) "Jack" Hinckley, Sr." Find a Grave. N.p., 31 Jan 2008. Web. 19 Apr
"Robert waited—holding his breath—thinking they were going to be buried alive. But the heaving stopped at last and it appeared that whatever was going to collapse had done so." (Findley, 122)
As a child, Egan desires to be a surgeon, then in adolescent years discovers a particular aversion to blood and switches her pursuits to archeology, as that field is very popular at the time. Many pivotal discoveries made the press in the early seventies and inspired her young mind with visions of adventure in exotic places. She tells of her youthful naivety, when during her senior year in high school, she wrote to several prestigious graduate programs offering her services to their archeology digs, thinking that she could get paid to explore in the upcoming summer. A reality check comes though, in the form of the single reply letter she receives enlightening her that graduate students pay them to go on digs and she is nowhere near adequate for the position. Still not giving up on her dream, Egan uses her hard earned money to pay for participation in a far less illustrious excavation venture for three weeks in Kampsville, Illinois. The pitifully small town is far removed from the extraordinary places she envisioned exploring and investigating through the years. The dig itself is anticlimactic to her preconceived notions of archeology in that she is allotted only one square metre of earth and not allowed to dig or even sit down. She has to squat down and painstakingly scrape away the soil with a scalpel in the sweltering summer sun. She sticks it out though, and completes her three week stint in Illinois, resigned to the fact that the life of an archeologist, just as that of a surgeon, was not her preferre...
The porch was a cemetery for dead potted plants, pots strewn carelessly across it, soil scattered everywhere. Dill took a cautious step onto the porch which groaned under the sudden placement of weight. He looked towards the house, grimacing as if he expected Boo Radley to pounce on ...
Hiking the switch backs we continued to climb. The mosquitoes and flies dictated our pace. Quickly, we discovered that if we maintained a decent walking speed the insects didn't bother us. However, the second we stopped moving, the critters instantly found us and proclaimed us as lunch! Continuing to ascend we noticed the underbrush beginning to thin. Our legs enjoyed the soft pack trail and we marveled at the natural staircases made of tree roots. The trail was challenging in sections as we navigated roots, rocks and slippery sections.
He stands a long time at the meeting of the two roads and looks down one path as far as he can but it disappears in the ‘undergrowth’ as it takes a bend
Reading the opening sentences, grand visions of my childhood danced through my head. The story took me back to happy times of summers spent alone with my grandfather in the mountains of West Virginia. Like Nick, the camping and fishing trips were a welcomed relief from the city life and school for me. Although we were in a different area of the country the wilderness seems to be the same. Like Nick I remembered being dropped off near the edge of the wilderness to hike in and go camping near the river. “The river just showed through the trees” (Hemingway 480). As with the main character the river always intrigued me as a child. It was many things such as the smell, the sound, and the being apart of nature that I liked. Most of all I really loved having the one on one time spent with my grandfather. Just as Hemmingway describes, we to would tromp through the mountains for what seemed like forever. We make the trek all in order to find that perfect spot to set up camp. I often felt as Nick did “His muscles ached and the day was hot but…felt happy” (Hemingway 468). When we came across that spot, a quote from the story says it best “He was there, in the good place” (Hemingway 471), and “The river was there” (Hemingway 467). A sense of happiness filled my body because I knew what was soon to come. We would set up the camp and get something to eat. I could feel Nick’s pain of being “very hungry” (Hemingway 470); this was one of the down sides of the trip. My grandfather would not stop just to eat we would have to find are site then we would take a break for a quick snack before setting up camp. First we would survey the site and plan the best placement for our things. Hemingway wrote “He pegged the sides out taut and drove the pegs deep” (470), this passage brought flash backs of my grandfather telling me how important it was to get the lines tight and drive the tent pegs deep into the ground.
3. Chapter 1, page 5, #3: “Moving through the soaked, coarse grass I began to examine each one closely, and finally identified the tree I was looking for by means of certain small scars rising along its trunk, and by a limb extending over the river, and another thinner limb growing near it.
Let’s examine the short story of “Killings” by Andre Dubus. The story begins on a warm August day with the burial of Matt and Ruth Fowler’s youngest son Frank. Frank was only twenty-one: “twenty-one years, eight months, and four days” (Dubus, “Killings” 107). Attending the funeral were Matt, his wife Ruth, their eldest son Steve, his wife, their middle daughter Cathleen and her husband. Frank was buried in a cemetery on a hill in Massachusetts overlooking the Merrimack. Across from the cemetery is an “apple orchard with symmetrically planted trees going up a hill” (107), a symbol of how nice and serene the cemetery actually is and the peace Frank now has. Matt’s family is extremely distraught over the murder of their youngest son/brother, so much to make comments of wanting to kill the killer themselves, “I should kill him” (107), stated the oldest son Steve, while walking from the grave site along side his father Matt. This comment is considered a fore-shadow to what is to come in the thought process of the family members.
At first glance, Buried Child seems as a typical Middle American family. Dodges one-track alcoholic mind, Halie’s pestering personality and Tilden’s distant relationship with his father all seems relatively typical of an elderly Middle America family. However, this is far from being the truth.
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney is the first poem in the first full volume of Heaney’s poems, “Death of a Naturalist”. “Death of a Naturalist” is about the transition into adulthood and the loss of innocence. The poem shows how Heaney looked up to his father and grandfather, especially their hard work. Even though Heaney did not follow in their footsteps and become a farm laborer, he respects the work they do, especially their skill at digging.
As I began to walk this trail, I began to recollect the days of when I was a kid playing in the woods, the birds chirping and the squirrels running free. The trees interlocking each other as if I am walking through a tunnel with the smell of fresh pine and a hint of oak all around me; a hint of sunshine every now and then is gleaming down on the beat path. This path is not like your ordinary path, it has been used quite some time, as if hundreds of soldiers have marched this very path.
through the landscape with a cold that ached in the bones. Every blade of grass was held
On the edge of a small wood, an ancient tree sat hunched over, the gnarled, old king of a once vast domain that had long ago been turned to pasture. The great, gray knees gripped the hard earth with a solidity of purpose that made it difficult to determine just where the tree began and the soil ended, so strong was the union of the ancient bark and grainy sustenance. Many years had those roots known—years when the dry sands had shriveled the outer branches under a parched sun, years when the waters had risen up, drowning those same sands in the tears of unceasing time.