A Father Like No Other

A father gets the opportunity of watching his children grow. He leads them toward what is right, and away from what is wrong.  He teaches them and loves them.  In a similar way the Founding Fathers of America watched their country grow and flourish.  It is obvious they loved their country and wanted them to succeed.  They set their country up for many future successes, even if they did not realize it at the time.  The Founding Fathers of America were a huge part of American history.  If I ever got the chance to speak to Founding Fathers of America, there are a few things I would tell them.

First of all, I would tell them thank you.  Thank you for paving the path for the rest of us.  Thank you for creating our government.  Thank you for everything you have done.  They have created a beautiful country for generations to come.  They have gotten their hands a little bit dirtier to establish a new country, one that will be strong, one that will last forever.  These are our hometown heroes.  Without them we would have no government.  With no government, our country would have very little hope of survival. Our country needed leaders, and that is exactly what our Founding Fathers gave it and more.

The Founding Fathers of America gave our country life.  We inherited an established country, they didn’t.  They worked hard for what we have today. Without the Founding Fathers of America, our lives would be very different.  Sometimes it is hard to even imagine what they had to do to establish our country because of how well it turned out to be.  They are individuals who take pride in what they do.  It is those individuals who step forward when everyone else steps back, that become great leaders.  It is those individuals who founded the United States of America.

Some kids don’t have a father there for them whenever they need it.  If America didn’t have its founding fathers, where would we be today?  The opportunity to speak to any of these strong leaders would be like no other.  If I ever got this chance, I would take it because of all the things I would want to tell them.  They were there for us when we needed them, and even though they aren’t here now, they did a pretty good job when they were.

Truly an Accident

Author's Note: This piece is about the cause and effect in the book Secret Life of Bees.  I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of cause and effect.

The Secret Life of Bees is a book about a girl named Lily who lived her whole life knowing that she killed her mother.  Even though it was truly an accident, she still feels the guilt.  Now she is on a mission to escape from her abusive father with her stand-in mother, Rosaleen and  follow the only trace of her mother to Tiburon, South Carolina.  There she meets a family of sisters and they tell her about her mother.  The main event of this book is when Lily runs away from home.  The cause of this event  is that her father was abusive and she did not want to be with him anymore.

When Lily runs away from home, the effect is that she meets the family of sisters in South Carolina.  If she never would have met them, she never would have found out anything about her mother.  She would have been seeking answers for the rest of her life.  In the end, she also ends up living with August, away from her father forever, so if she never met the sisters, she would still be living with her father.

Locked in Time

Author's Note: This piece is about the conflict/resolution in the book Sarah's Key.  I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of conflict/resolution.

The holocaust was a terrible time when all of the Jews were put in work camps.  Some were able to escape, but others were not so lucky.In Sarah's Key, a little girl is faced with this struggle without realizing it in the beginning.  She left her younger brother locked in a cabinet so he would not have to go, but little did she know, she was never coming back.  

The main conflicts in this book are person vs. society and person  vs. self.  The little girl is against the society because they are putting her in work camps for her religion.  The other conflict is that the little girl is determined to get back to her brother, and save him from the cabinet and she will do anything it takes to get back to him.  The person vs. society conflict is resolved when the little girl escapes from the work camps.  The person vs. self conflict is resolved when the little girl finds her way back home only to find new people living in her house.  She quickly goes to the cabinet he is hidden in, but when she opens it, there is a sight that she will never forget. A sight that will leave her mourning for the rest of her life.  A sight that will slowly chip away at her until she is nothing at all.  She is left with nothing but a heart full of loss.

The Stairs of the Falls

The beauty of a waterfall is one like no other.  It is amazing to see gallons and gallons of water tumble off the edge of cliff.  One of the most famous waterfalls in the world is Niagara Falls.   Niagara Falls is a great place for a family vacation, until someone gets a little wet. 

It was the middle of summer and my family was in Niagara Falls, New York.  We had arrived at the falls and decided to go on a boat ride called "The Maid of the Mist".  This boat ride would take us closer to the waterfalls so we could get a better look at them.  After the boat ride, we saw some stairs that we thought led up to the top.  Instead of using the elevator, we decided that it might be cool to, once again, get a better look at the falls.  We later found out that first of all, the stairs didn't lead up to the top, and second, these stairs were about to change our day.

We began to climb the stairs.  I was right behind my dad with my younger brother, Bradley, following me.  The climb started out fine.  We weren't getting too wet and we still had the rain ponchos they had given us for the boat ride.  As we got higher and higher, the water started hitting us harder and harder.  It didn't feel like rain, but more like when you are at a water park and they have the big bucket filled with however many gallons of water and then there is the bell that starts ringing right before the bucket dumps and soaks you with water.  By the time we had almost reached the top, I heard Bradley crying.  I turned around to see what was wrong.  Since he wouldn't tell me, I just tried to shield the water off of him using my poncho.  But considering the amount of water there was, my poncho didn't help much.  

I was soon to find out, that there were two reasons Bradley was crying.  One, because his new ten dollar shoes were being ruined, and two, because he was getting wet.  When we reached the "top" we found out that we were only at the top of the stairs, not at the top of the waterfall, where we needed to be.  We quickly began descending the stairs, in attempt to stay as dry as possible.  By the time we got to the bottom, Bradley was already crying about how he wanted to go home.  The only problem was, we still had the rest of the vacation to enjoy.  

Later in the day, and I mean a lot later, Bradley all of a sudden forgot what had happened that morning and became himself again.  The rest of the day after that was a lot more pleasant that climbing up those horrifying stairs, although, looking back on it, it actually wasn't that bad.  It was only water and it dried quickly because of the sun.  But as you can see, a little bit of water, or a lot, can make a big difference on how the day turns out to be.