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Monday, April 13, 2015

"My Life as a Child" by Andrew L


            As I grew up in West Covina I witnessed many bad things. One night as I was hanging out with my dad outside he heard gunshots. He picked me up and ran inside. That next morning my dad found out some lady got shot and died. My dad knew at that time we lived in a bad part of Covina. Every night my dad laid there waiting for someone to try to hurt my family. My dad did everything he could for my family. As I grew up on that street one day we heard gunshots and called 911 I didn’t pay attention until the end when I saw around 50 people on the curve arrested. I learned that family is everything and stupid things land you in jail. My life in that house was amazing we rode bikes to the park had picnics. Everyone would get on whatever they are riding and we would go to eat, park, and sometimes we would even ride to the mall. One day we went to the skate park and my brother went to drop in and he fell and broke his arm and leg. They rushed him to the hospital and he came home with two casts. Another thing we would do to keep us entertained we would climb on the roof. One day we went on the roof without telling my parents when they weren’t home and I actually fell off and scrapped my shin. Other things we would do are ride my jeep around the house and the backyard. We knew everyone on the block after those people got arrested from that one pink house. Over the summer I would ride my jeep to these peoples house and play with their grandchildren. My older brothers and sister would go across the street to hang out with the older kids and they would go swimming in their pool and bar-b-q. The little boy and I were about 4 years old and we would go back and forth to each other’s houses and would ride around each other’s yard and play with our little toys. 
One day I found out my friend moved away with his parents and that was my only friend on the block, then I found out I was having a little brother and I was so happy. As years went on I would hang out with older people like my brothers and sister, then my little brother was old enough to play with me. He took over all my toys but I would still fight with him because I would tell him they were my toys and tease him. One time I made him cry and he got so mad threw his toy at me and told. My mom took all my toys away and put me on timeout for 10 minutes. A couple weeks later my parents started arguing and they got divorced and we moved with my grandma. Me and my little brother had to wake up at 3 o’clock every morning for my mom to drop us off at my brothers babysitter. One morning we were on our way to the babysitters and my brother was talking to my mom and she turned around and looked at him and pulled the e brake. The whole car turned around and we were facing oncoming traffic. That morning I thought my life was over.

9 comments:

  1. I liked this piece because it was a lot of vignettes of your childhood in such little space. Organization could've been improved if you separated each memory in a different paragraph. You began a lot of your sentences with "one time", "one day", or "one night" and it got repetitive occasionally. I also would've liked to known what happened after the car turned around, you should've continued OR I think it would've been really cool if you started out like "my parents just got divorced and my brother, mother, and I were driving in the car when the car turned around to face incoming traffic" AND THEN gone into your flashback about how you got to that point with your childhood growing up in West Covina AND THEN continued to what happened after the car turned around. There are some spelling and grammar mistakes but I feel like sometimes it enhances the voice of the speaker, it feels like you're conversing when it's put into a casual format. I like this story because its nostalgic without being overly emotional and weepy and flowery. You had a real childhood and you learned a lot from a young age and thats what childhood is supposed to be like. I grew up in the super suburbs and I wasn't even allowed to go outside to buy from an ice cream truck, let alone climb on the roof. It's amazing how much more intuitive you became because of your environment; you knew what to fear, you knew what your parents felt, you knew what stupid things would land you in jail. I enjoyed this story because you didn't try to make it flowery with convoluted language and bells and whistles and you didn't need to, this is a great story by itself.

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  2. Question: How the heck do you ride a Jeep around your house?!

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  4. Andrew, it was good story and it sounds like you had a good and a bad child hood at the same time but it was a really good story but you did have a few missing words but overall it was good.

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  5. Good story. It shows that life isn't always perfect and that struggles do exist. I like how u showed that with the bad times came good times. Good use of details on describing the houses and what u did for fun and what happened.- Tatiana Nunez Per 6

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  6. I really enjoyed reading this piece! I love how I could relate to everything from this because I too used to live in a terrible neighborhood where crime happened almost every night. It got to the point where it was so normal for me. But like you, I was also young and didn't really fully understand a lot. I always saw the good out of everything and had fun regardless. I enjoyed all the detail you used in this story, it made me feel like I was really there through each scene of events. Great story!

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  7. Bruh this is a great story about the struggle people have to face. I personally haven't gone through stuff like this and I'm very lucky. You deserve a lot of respect for all that you have had to go through in life and I wish you all the best man. A1 job!!

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  8. Woah the mom is crazy! I get it the dad was always trying to save the family and the mom was trying to kill them that's scary! Well great job it was like a flash back I really enjoy reading flashback storys they're always really interesting to read! Especially this one.:) I feel so bad when the friend moves away :( great job! It made me see the text as images in my head :)

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  9. I enjoyed the format in which you wrote this piece. The simple syntax and casual narration builds on the character's personality. The detail your flashback is very intricate and gives the reader a clear sense of what is occurring; almost like they're there in every scene. Great work!

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