A Walk in the Park
My father and I were resting comfortably on our downstairs sofa riveted to the T.V. The climax of the latest Star Trek episode was just beginning to unfold. As the show cut for a commercial break my father turned to me and asked if I had removed the air conditioner from my upstairs, bedroom window. In our house I had a fall ritual involving air conditioning unit removal from the window and subsequent storage of said monstrosity in the closet. My younger brother, a hulking high school football linebacker, had a corresponding ritual of placing the air conditioning unit in the window the following spring. I hated removing this hulking piece of metal from my window because it was heavy and dirty. Each annual removal operation usually meant sore, scraped arms and liberal amounts of coolant oil on my designer jeans.
"I'll take it out after the show is over" I replied to my dad. Unfortunately this did not bring the closure I had expected. My father, angered that I had left this task to the final days of fall (still within the required timeline in my mind) insisted the job be done immediately. Like now.
This made the whole ordeal more aggravating to me. Not only was I to suffer abuse at the hands of this air conditioner but I would miss the end of my show too.
I climbed upstairs, seething with a rage mixed with adolescent hormones and self pity. I reached my bedroom, threw back the drapes, approached the window from where the air conditioner was perched and jerked open the window. To my horror, the air conditioner tumbled backwards out the window, end over end and landed squarely on the roof of my fathers two day old Buick. The Buick roof crumpled like a piece of paper. Meanwhile, the air conditioner had bounced off the car and landed sharply on our paved driveway. The whole incident took no more than a few seconds and yet my mind played it back in horrific, slow motion. I surveyed the scene. My dad's Buick looked like somebody had taken a sledge hammer and swung a lethal blow to its middle. The air conditioner lay in a heap of scrap metal beside the car.
I reflected on my next move. I had waded into my fair share of trouble before and had come up with many ingenious cover ups some of which still remain a secret to this day.
Every culture has some form of higher being, to be a model for their behaviour, as well as to look up to. In Greek times, these were the gods and goddesses who made their home on Mount Olympus. Women identified with the goddesses because they shared some feminine attributes. Goddesses were a “symbol of motherhood and fertility, but also of strength, wisdom, caring, nuturing, temperance, chastity, cunning, trickery, jealousy, and lasciviousness” (Clarke, 1999). However, not all of the goddesses possessed all of these attributes. The goddess Aphrodite, for instance, was not nurturing, nor was she very caring.
Simone Weil argues that the way Homer presents war and the use of force in the Iliad, in all of its brutality, violence, and bitterness bathes the work in the light of love and justice (pg 25). The point Weil is making is that by depicting the suffering of all of these men regardless of their side, or strength Homer equalizes them in a “condition common to all men”(pg 25). Because Homer equalizes them the reader can feel empathy, or at least compassion for all of the men. However while Weil is correct about how Homer’s descriptions of war and force reveal justice and love, she is wrong in thinking that justice and love are mere “accents” to the Iliad, and progress through the story “without ever becoming noticeable”(pg 25). Homer not only reveals this underlying idea to the reader through his tone and even handedness, but also through Achilles’ journey. By the end of the Iliad Achilles understands justice and love in much the same way that the reader does.
It is said that the Grecians were the first people responsible for giving life to god and goddesses that looked like actual human beings. They made beautiful men and women. They made people with humor and dignity, as well as animals, including monsters (Daly). All of their gods and goddesses had rare capabilities, but there was one who was very distinctive and was loved by many gods and mortals. We all know her as the goddess of love, beauty, femininity and sexuality. Her name, Aphrodite.
“August 2000, our family of six was on the way to a wedding. It was a rainy day, and Gregg was not familiar with the area. The car hit standing water in the high-way, and started hydro-planing. Greg lost control of the car. Then, the car went backwards down into a ditch and started sliding on its wheels sideways. After sliding for 100 feet or so, the car flipped, at least once. After flipping, the car came to rest on its wheels, and the passenger window broke out.
.../blower unit so buyers will be forced to purchase the blanket at a marked up price.
...it was also a much cheaper alternative. The transition to residential air conditioning began by moving to department stores, then apartment buildings, and even the ice rink in Madison Square Garden! The evolution was slowed by the Great Depression, but it eventually took off, and led to the commonality of air conditioning units in every home as it is today.
Homer is credited for writing epics that generate source materials for the modern world. The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer are captivating stories with fascinating heroic characters. The Homer stories share with classical mythology typical recurrent motifs. The two Homer epic poems focus on the Trojan War, and its result. The epic poems contain the Greek mythology featuring the Greek gods, goddesses, mythological creatures, and the Greek heroes, and heroines. In addition, the principal motifs typical of classical mythological hero stories are; the dominance of fate, evil fighting against the gods, and death. In both the classic mythology, and he modern fiction hero stories, the heroes always have a helper in their expedition, but ultimately, they have to stand alone, face the darkness, and conquer it in order to become victorious.
...than to explain and educate a customer about the operation of the evaporative emission control system and why it is not working in the car, but no one wants to hear any of that. We are also not salesman.
Ingri and Edgar Parin D’alaure’s. Book of Greek Myths. New York: Bantam Dowbleday Dell Publishing Group, 1962.
Homer's two central heroes, Odysseus and Achilles, are in many ways differing manifestations of the same themes. While Achilles' character is almost utterly consistent in his rage, pride, and near divinity, Odysseus' character is difficult to pin down to a single moral; though perhaps more human than Achilles, he remains more difficult to understand. Nevertheless, both heroes are defined not by their appearances, nor by the impressions they leave upon the minds of those around them, nor even so much by the words they speak, but almost entirely by their actions. Action is what drives the plot of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and action is what holds the characters together. In this respect, the theme of humanity is revealed in both Odysseus and Achilles: man is a combination of his will, his actions, and his relationship to the divine. This blend allows Homer to divulge all that is human in his characters, and all that is a vehicle for the idyllic aspects of ancient Greek society. Accordingly, the apparent inconsistencies in the characterization of Odysseus can be accounted for by his spiritual distance from the god-like Achilles; Achilles is more coherent because he is the son of a god. This is not to say that Achilles is not at times petty or unimaginative, but that his standards of action are merely more continuous through time. Nevertheless, both of Homer's heroes embody important and admirable facets of ancient Greek culture, though they fracture in the ways they are represented.
Lattimore, Richard. Introduction. The Iliad of Homer. New York: University of Chicago Press. 1961. 7–55.
Then the accident happened and my perspective changed. I heard a scream. My sister yelled “HELP!!” I watched as what was happening was moving by me speedily, not waiting for me to catch up. It all happened in a blur as I ran out to see what happened. My brother had jumped out in front of the skid steer while it was rolling down the hill. His leg had become wedged between the van at the bottom of the hill and the skid steer fork. There was blood everywhere. My dad was not home. He was at work so he could not come right away. My mom had to move the big van
This soon-to-be king solved the riddle of the Sphinx, which had been killing the young men of Thebes as they tried to leave. The people of Thebes respected Oedipus, for he had saved the city from the Sphinx, by answering this riddle. For the removal of this monster he was praised by the city of Thebes and married the newly widowed Queen, Jocasta. Jocastas husband had been murdered by a "group of robbers" (who was actually Oedipus).
Throughout studying many myths, I came up with many new observations. Many questions came into my mind about these myths. Greek mythology takes us back to a time when people had a connection with nature and when nature played a major role in people’s lives. The religious beliefs of the people who wrote the myths are found in the background of these myths; however, they are not to be read like religious texts. The myths try to offer explanations of “how”, which makes us think deeply about the purpose of these myths and the questions they draw to our minds. According to the myths we studied in class, the world created the gods, not the other way around. The gods were always created in the image of man, which shows how much men were important in their society. Furthermore, many of these Greek myths show us the difference between the views of the Greek then and our view towards many aspects of the society, including nature. Monsters appear in Greek myths and have different representations and roles. Greek mythology reflects a view of the Greeks towards the world and how certain aspects of their lives are similar and different to modern society.
I had driven home this way a thousand times before, but today would be different. The misty rain made the road slick as I steered the car through the slow, wide curve. It may have been the setting sun in my eyes, but it was probably a combination of the loud song on the radio and the slight yawn that escaped from my mouth. Regardless, a momentary distraction was all it took as the tires hit the damp gravel. The wet rubber and slick stones triggered the car to slide off the road to the right. In a panic, I jerked the wheel to the left, over-correcting the slide. Swerving across oncoming traffic, my car jumped over the drainage ditch and smashed down into a neighbor’s front yard. Continuing its dangerous journey, the car destroyed a lamp