“The Pirates were so much better than the Cardinals!” said Daniel in a dumbfounded voice as if I had just said that two plus two equals five. We were walking home from St. Clement of Rome on a sunny October afternoon. “No way,” I said with no idea because I didn't really follow baseball, “the Pirates were trash!” as we approached Berkley Manor, about two-thirds between school and my house, and halfway between the school and his house. There was a small group of trees right before Berkley Manor; bigger than a bush, but smaller than a forest. As we passed the group of trees, I noticed my mom sitting in her idling brownish-bronze Buick sedan sitting at the intersection of Berkley Manor and Bopp Road. I was curious because she usually doesn't do …show more content…
My mom and I didn’t really think much of what happened. I merely thought it was like a check-up. We waited, patiently, with me sitting on the wax paper-like cover on the red leather bed, and my mom sitting in a navy blue plastic chair like the ones in the Si Commons. There were paintings and drawings on the wall that looked like they were drawn by a four year old. The borders on the wall near the floor and ceiling had bi-planes flying around like they do in a dogfight. The room also had a short round chair that had wheels on the bottom. I started to become impatient and I started to roll around on the chair to pass time, and my mom started …show more content…
“What does that mean?” I thought to myself, “How long will it last?” “Am I going to die?” I sat back into the corner that the bed was in, and just sat there with my legs straight out. The doctor was talking to my mom about sending me to the hospital I assumed, but I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy taking in what just happened. I then walked over to the other chair next to my mom’s and sat down. My mom took some tissues out of her purse and started to blow her nose. I tried not to bawl to look tough like getting hit by a pitch in a baseball game, which I was successful in doing. I remembered talking about something like Diabetes in science class, and I remember talking about the pancreas. I also remembered the teacher, Mrs. Klevorn, telling us that there were two kinds of Diabetes, but I couldn't remember the difference between them; my fifth grade mind at the time didn't really care for this. After about three to four minutes of just sitting there, I asked the doctor what that meant. He told us that the pancreas makes a hormone called insulin that keeps blood sugar from getting too high. He said that my pancreas in particular didn't do its job. He explained the pancreas’ work like a hotel hallway with a bunch of doors; when sugar passed through the hallway, the doors would open and the insulin would flow out and lower my blood sugar. The doctor then told us he would call the hospital so we could basically
Nemec, David, and Saul Wisnia. 100 Years of Baseball. Lincolonwood, Ill.: Publications International, 2002, Print.
The load alarm rang waking me from my sleep. The clock read 7:45 on December 7, 1941. It was a Sunday, so it was getting ready for church. Today was my day off, which on work days I work on the USS Tennessee as a engineer. My job is to supervise and make sure the engines are running smoothly. I have been been working on her for many months on the Southern side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. I am stationed at a U.S. naval base named Pearl Harbor. I stepped out of my quarters to admire the ships around me called “Battleship Row.” It contains eight large, powerful battleships. Just ahead of the USS Tennessee is the USS Maryland directly behind is the USS Arizona. The USS Tennessee was a beauty, which is why I loved working on it. The glorious ship has a length of 624 feet and it travels at 21 knots. She was tied to her mooring next to a quay. I was ready to go to church and have a nice relaxing day.
“My grandmother and I followed the Yankees together, and by the time I was ten it had become an ongoing conversation between us. Box scores, averages, pitching rotations, prenogis for the World Series – because there was almost never a series without the Yankees” (12). The Yankees were a symbol of American pride for Peter, “they were more than a team...
Once inside, I started to began feeling weird and a little uncomfortable. I was surrounded by young, scary humans, with sharp, hard, shinny objects, in their faces and pieces of art on their arms or backs. I could now hear the music coming from inside the main room of the building. The room was every large with different sections that held a countless amount of people. We went to the lowest section of the main room and stayed near the back, where fewer people were. My feelings soon changed from weird and uncomfortable, to slightly scared and fearful for me life, as I began to view the first group perform.
In the early 20th century, baseball became the first professional sport to earn nationwide attention in America. Because it was our first national professional team sport, because of its immense popularity, and because of its reputation as being synonymous with America, baseball has been written about more than any other sport, in both fiction and non-fiction alike. As baseball grew popular so did some of the sportswriters who wrote about the game in the daily newspaper. Collectively, the sportswriters of the early 20th century launched a written history of baseball that transformed the game into a “national symbol” of American culture, a “guardian” of America’s traditional values, and as a “gateway” to an idealized past. (Skolnik 3) No American sport has a history as long—or as romanticized—as that of the game referred to as our “national pastime.”
I enter the brick building and walk over to the elevator; I push the up button and patiently wait. The elevator door promptly opens, and I get in. I push the button with a number two on it, and the doors close… up I go. Once on the second floor, I exit the elevator. Even before I go into Dr.Taylor’s office, I can immediately smell the mixture of wintergreen-flavored toothpaste and bleach out in the hall. As soon as I open the outer door, a blast of cool air from the air conditioner hits me in the face and makes me shiver all over. I walk in and add my name to the list on the sign-in sheet. Mindy, the gray-hared women behind the frosted glass slide window, sees me and lets me know that the doctor will be ready soon. While I wait for the dental assistant in her crisp white uniform to call out my name, I look at the fish in the large blue tank in the corner of the room. The sleek fish dart about playing hide and seek with the plastic mermaid at the bottom of the tank, while tiny silver bubbles slip to the top of the tank's surface and break silently. I then turn and see a photo album sitting on a coffee table; I pick it up only to see pictures of decaying teeth and...
I stood yesterday afternoon engaged in the immense time consuming game of baseball. I stood there contemplating on what ideas, mainly about baseball, were being distorted and confused. Then it hit me…
Billy Thompson and Sam Westfield were similar in many ways. Since a young age they both has excelled at sports and both loved more then anything, the sport of football. While growing up, the boys did not know each other and probably thought they would never have too. But all of that changed with the diagnosis.
The Hero’s Journey is a basic template utilized by writers everywhere. Joseph Campbell, an American scholar, analyzed an abundance of myths and literature and decided that almost all of them followed a template that has around twelve steps. He would call these steps the Hero’s Journey. The steps to the Hero’s Journey are a hero is born into ordinary circumstances, call to adventure/action, refusal of call, a push to go on the journey, aid by mentor, a crossing of the threshold, the hero is tested, defeat of a villain, possible prize, hero goes home. The Hero’s Journey is more or less the same journey every time. It is a circular pattern used in stories or myths.
The air hung around them, tensed and quiet. The fragility of her emotion was threatening to shatter. It is as if that time stood still for her. She fingered the brim of her notebook, nervously and took notice of the cup of coffee on her side. Controlling the sudden urged to drown the caffeine all at once; she carefully picked the cup and warily sipped its content. It had long been cold, and her tongue appreciated that fact.
Tygiel, Jules. 2001; 2000. Past time: Baseball as history. Oxford England; New York: Oxford University Press.
I woke up to the pungent smell of hospital disinfect, invading my nostrils. The room was silent apart from my heavy breathing and the beep beep sound you often hear in hospitals that indicates you're alive. I slowly opened my eyes, squinting in attempt to sharpen the blurred images before me. I glanced around and took in the deserted, blue and white colour schemed hospital bedroom. How long have I been here? I shut my eyes, trying to remember what had exactly happened. Then it all hits me with a bang. The memory of it all starts to occupy my thoughts.
Once I got there I pushed open the door, the first thing that went through my mind was why isn’t my Mum here, then I realised the text I sent to my Mum didn’t send due to insufficient funds in my phone. As I was about to turn back and make my way back home the smiling receptionist said. “Well, hello Bilal we were expecting you, why don’t you take a seat?” This had been my first time going to somewhere like the dentist alone. To be honest I was calm until I heard muffled screaming “Aoowww” from room number 3. No patient came out of room 3 after what I had just saw I was praying that the smiling receptionist doesn’t tell me to go to room 3.
Thumbs Out A girlfriend of mine once defended me to her father by saying, calmly, “Not everyone who wanders is lost.” The dad kicked me out of the house anyway. But the damage had been done. Not everyone who wanders is lost.
The moment we stepped foot into the hospital, I could hear my aunt telling my mother that “he is in a better place now”. At that moment, something had already told me that my dad was deceased; it was like I could feel it or something. I felt the chills that all of a sudden came on my arms. As my mother and grandmother were both holding my hand, they took me into this small room. The walls were white, and it had a table with four tissue boxes sitting on the top. My other grandmother was there, and so were my two aunts, my uncles, and