Bernard Knox

After reading this description of the life of Bernard Knox, I couldn’t help but be amazed. His life is full of such contrasts, he worked undercover missions in German-occupied France and teaches the Classics. Rachel said that Knox is “uniquely qualified" to write about many things because of his background. While that is true, I can’t help but being grateful one doesn’t have to be a resistance fighter in the Spanish Civil War to be qualified to write. I have never done anything remotely as interesting as Knox, but thing I have insight to share. This personal essay section showed me that I can take my simple experiences and make the universally appealing. (Mine, truthfully, are probably not universally appealing.) So even though we might not have done anything like Knox, we can still be great writers. Hooray!

P.S. I know this isn't very analytical, but this Humanities paper is taking me forever to finish. I will try and write something more inspirational tomorrow.

Dresses, Dancing, and Deodorant

The topic of choosing a past century to visit makes me laugh because my family constantly makes fun of me for wishing I lived in the past. I have always loved history, and one day made the mistake of saying I plan to make my children’s clothes. Now my little sister constantly makes fun of my future “pilgrim children” and proudly states that her kids will beat my kids up. My mom even says that she will love my kids even though they will be weird. I have asked myself many times when in the past I would like to live and I can never choose just one.

I would like to travel back and meet my grandparents when they were in their twenties. My grandma Mary would have just arrived in New York City after a several month voyage from Ireland, and my grandpa would be attending an illustrious school in New York City and living in a five story penthouse. I love the clothing from the late 1700s (think Pride and Prejudice and Revolutionary War) and think dressing like that would be amazing. I would transport myself to 1912 and try to keep people from boarding the Titanic. I’d swing dance in the thirties and visit Bethlehem to witness Jesus’s birth. I’d travel to past times when women were courted and men recited poetry to gain their lady’s admiration. I’d travel to every century and visit every part of the world if I had my own time machine.

However, there are things that I would not enjoy about traveling to the past. Bathing only once every couple of months would be disgusting and suffering from now curable disease would be unbearable. I couldn’t stand being treated as worthless just because of my gender or being forced to marry some seventy year old, pock faced man solely for financial reasons. While I tend to romanticize the past, I understand that there are many things that would make life miserable. That’s why I think we should just bring back the good things from past centuries and incorporate them into our modern lives. I fully support courting, beautiful dresses, and ballroom dancing mixed in with my cell-phone using, voting, and choose-your-own husband life.

Me, Dad, and Jimmy

Every morning I used to race to the passenger side of my dad’s blue Dodge pickup, hoping to get in before he pulled out of the driveway. Breathless I threw my many bags into the backseat and said, “Let’s listen to Little Jimmy.” My dad would shake his head and start the c.d. player, switching to track number two. Floating from the speakers came our favorite song, the one we listened to every morning; “There’s a village, hidden deep in the valley.” Soon I was crooning along while Dad joined in on the chorus. It seems so surprising that we bonded over a country song from the 1930s, a song before either of our generations. As we pulled into the school parking lot, I bellowed out the last few words, and we both started to laugh. Little Jimmy in the Valley, actually titled the Three Bells, is our favorite song and will always connect me with my dad. I always entered the school smiling because I could never be cranky after listening to the life of Jimmy. Sometimes I’d switch Dad’s Country Classics c.d. to listen to Honeycomb or Sixteen Tons, but Jimmy remains my favorite. My dad and I will forever be connected by this simple country tune.

My dad loves to share his musical tastes with me and my two sisters. Usually it’s in the car where we are forced to listen to the entire country collection from 1930 to 1975. Ashley, the youngest, starts complaining immediately, but I don’t mind as I know he listens without complaint to our many musical selections. This summer during my infatuation with the movie Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights I introduced my parents to the great music of salsa dancing. I played the movie’s soundtrack and began sashaying around the kitchen with Sara and Ash. Before I knew it Dad came out of his office and started dancing too. Who knew he was a salsa dancer? He did a great mambo step and finished with a flick of his foot and a toss of his head. He might not have won any competitions for technique, but he had style.

Music is the thread that bonds me and my dad. We each have our different tastes, but we love each other enough to appreciate the others music. He’s shared his love of classic country and rock bands from the Seventies, and I force him to listen to my latest favorite. It doesn’t matter whether he is mad that I made him late for work or if I think he is being unrealistic about my organization skills, we can always come together over our love for Little Jimmy and his valley.