3rd Assignment: The Little Store

Welty tells first about where the location of everything was that she remembers. She tells first about how her mother was an independent person never needing to go to the store for herself or buying extra groceries. She tells about her mother being a "thrifty homemaker, wife, mother of three, and a woman that did all of her own cooking." The girl is telling about how her mother sent her down to the Little Store and she would volunteer to go. She explains how one of the farmers around there had a song to bring with him that went...
"Milk, milk,
Buttermilk,
Snap beans-butterbeans-
Tender okra-fresh greens...
And buttermilk."

The girl explains how she enjoys the trip to the store by jumping-rope, hopped its length through mazes of hopscotch, played jacks in its islands of shade, ride in circles down the sidewalk with her Princess bicycle, and skated it back and forwards. She tells how she would play out there with her brothers and friends as long as "first dark" lasted. Then she tells about how she and another boy that lives on that street were fighting the flu epidemic and she made a joke poem about the boy going to heaven with the influenza. She upset her parents with this a great deal.

Then she tells about how the Little Store. She tells about the make-up of the store itself and then the inside of how it is very hard to focus on what you went there for because of all the different things there. She tells how Mr. Sessions knows exactly what you are going to get and how to help you out. She tells how he would weigh you everytime you went in and remember what you weighed before so you could subtract and announce how much you'd gained. That is his way of goodbye. The way she tells about the store comes off in a very positive and cheerful way. Any reader can tell that she feels nicely toward this place. At one point she says "I believed the Little Store to be a center of the outside world, and hence of happiness..."

She reinforces her childlike perspective by telling about everything a child is thinking when they see everything that goes on. Her total obliviousness of the world and the things that go on that she did not understand at the time. Something happens to Mr. Sessions family that she did not really know existed and when she asked what had happened to her parents they only responded "until the time comes for you to know." She also explains how the sewers are a dark scary place she would use to go home on the times she was afraid to just walk home. It was the hard way to go home but she enjoyed it.

2nd Assignment: Boston

I am from Boston. I am from the area where people talk quickly, rudely, and with the northern dialect. I was born there and raised there for about four years. While there I learned how each word sounded by listening to my parents and their friends. Also from all the friends I made growing up with that could speak I learned more words. From there I learned my dialect without knowing it was or what was a dialect. I also learned a few northern traditions and foods that was considered normal and regular to eat at a majority of times. The place I grew up definitely left a mark on me that has stuck with me till this day. There I would either be living near the city or near the coast so I would always be on the water. I got used to waking up to the sunrise over the ocean and going out on a boat and doing water sports all the time. Other times it would be swimming in my heated pool with my family. After moving down to Georgia I was ridiculed for the way I spoke and the way I said my sentences. People would have to ask what I said over and over to understand what I was saying because of how I said my R's. A lot of people would make fun of how I spoke just because I sounded so different. A lot of people started calling me Boston back when I went to middle and high school. Still today I sometimes pronounce certain words with a northern accent. I try not to speak that way anymore because whenever one of those words slip out people are confused and have to ask me to repeat what I said. It is quite annoying so I just try not to do it. Although I do keep my northern speaking ability alive in me by talking like that with my family. Some of my family are from Sweden so they have thick accents mixed with northern dialects so the way I talk is very different from the south. I refuse to talk with a country accent because a lot of people affiliate southern accents with stupidity. I do not really understand why that is nowadays because some southerners are very smart but I just will not use the southern twang, slang or accents. So I keep my Boston side of me alive but do not really let anyone notice. I am glad I am from Boston and I am going to try to keep the place where I was born alive in me forever.

1st Assignment: Greek Friends

I am here at my friend's house relaxing just talking to my friend and his family. They are Greek and quite different from many of the other families I have encountered. Usually I and with my friend in the basement where it is dimly lit by a few overheard lamps. "Still, a great deal of light falls on everything." I was just sitting on a couch just chatting with them and I learned a great deal about their culture and style of living. Sometimes it was hard to understand my friend's father because of the way he spoke and the way he spoke of different things. It would be exact to say "If I can't see these minutiae, I still try to keep my eyes open." I cannot completely understand his father but I try my best to catch every word he says, even the Greek ones. I was invited to stay for dinner and I expected something interesting and yet regular. When we sat down at the table waiting for the food the parents were talking about work very seriously. I could not understand why they were so serious but my friend did. "We miss a great deal because we perceive only things on our own scale.""I reeled in confusion; I did not understand what I saw." Once the food was ready I was excited. They had made a soup appetizer. There I could say "I saw what I expected." After the soup they served us pork loin and rice with a special sauce that was delicious. I was not so enthusiastic about the food at first because of the look of it but it turned out to be quite alright. We talked all throughout dinner and it was very pleasant. Sometimes the family spoke in Greek so I just had to try my best at understanding and making the right gestures at the right times like I understood. After that the mother brought out some kind of dessert that consisted of a Greek cookie kourabiethes and some strawberries mixed with mandarin orange slices. We sat around for a little longer then cleared up. That night I learned a lot about Greek culture. They told me about the different figures in their house and I could see on their faces their own admiration for their pieces of art they had ascertained over the years. They definitely taught me how to admire one's own possessions. "I had my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck." I had been taught something anew and will now treasure my valuables with greater care. The only way I can think to use the last quote from Dillards would be my friends car. She would go outside and then turn around and come right back in during the ice dilemma days. "This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is." This phrase almost completely confuses me but I can see how it is relevant to my friends cat. I saw how Greeks live and learned about them.

All quotes are from Annie Dillard