The essays on this site were written by the Advanced Writing class at Maranatha Baptist Bible College during the 2010 fall semester. Each of the students wrote essays on topics that William Zinsser discusses in his book On Writing Well, which was one of our two textbooks, along with William Strunk & E. B. White's The Elements of Style. These essays included art reviews, sportswriting, memoirs, profiles, science and technology writing, and essays on particular places. At the end of the semester, each student took his or her best essay of the semester and polished it. The following essays are the result of their hard work.
They've done an excellent job, and I'm proud of them. Enjoy your reading!
12/10/10
Making Time
Amber Bradley
As I look back on my life, I see that my grandpa was one of the most influential people of my childhood. For the first ten years of my life my family lived on the same property as he did, just a few dozen yards up a hill from his house. I remember my brothers and I would run down the hill to Grandpa’s house almost every day. One of the things I think of most when I remember my grandpa is the fact that he was always busy. He was always tinkering on his tractor, working in his garden, or fixing tools and machinery. Even though he had retired from the two jobs he had held over the years, he was never idle for as long as I knew him.
Grandpa’s family taught him to work hard and stay on the go. He was born in 1930 and grew up on a dairy farm in rural Illinois in the midst of the Great Depression and World War II. He learned from an early age the importance of hard work since he did it all the time. I remember seeing numerous old newspaper articles with pictures featuring a younger version of Grandpa and reading about how the Bradley farm was using technology to save time with milking. Not only did he learn the importance of physical labor, but he also gained invaluable experience and resourcefulness from working with farm equipment.
Another influence in my grandpa’s life was the time he spent in the Air Force in the early 1950s. Although he couldn’t become a pilot because of his poor eyesight, he was able to work as an airplane mechanic. Even though he never saw action in the sense of piloting a plane while he was in the military, he gained discipline and a good work ethic from those few years he spent in the Air Force. In 1953, his father injured his back so he needed my grandpa back on the farm. The Air Force granted Grandpa an honorable discharge and he went back home to work.
This hard-working attitude persisted through the years. In the 1980s, Grandpa was able to retire early but he grew restless and went to work at another job before he eventually retired from that job as well. While at home he kept busy with numerous projects such as painting, fixing machinery, and building various contraptions. He was always doing something. Grandpa always had time for his grandkids—in between and even during the time he spent working on projects. As far back as I can remember he kept a large garden. Every spring he would go out and plow the dirt and then we would help with the planting and watering of the seeds. During the summer we were out there with Grandpa pulling weeds and picking vegetables as they ripened. Then when fall came we were there again helping him pick the rest of the vegetables.
Grandpa had an old farm tractor that he used to do a variety of different things around his property. He used it for mowing the grass, digging, and pulling trees and branches. Problems with his tractor would come up regularly, so he would fix them up. Another of his projects was a couple of go-karts. For one reason or another there always seemed to be something wrong with one of them so Grandpa would either fix it or devise some clever outside-the-box solution. On one of the go-karts he rigged up a rearview mirror and a hanging handle connected to the brake pedal so he could brake using his hand rather than his foot.
My brothers and I would go to Grandpa’s house every opportunity we had. Even after my family moved a few miles away we would frequently call Grandpa and ask if we could come over. We were always welcome at his house. Even though I didn’t realize it as a child, I have come to understand that my grandpa had a profound impact on my life. I noticed his consistent hard-working attitude and that influenced me to keep at it. Grandpa’s life experiences cultivated his commitment to hard work, but he made time for the important people in his life. His unwavering commitment to hard work while still making time for his grandkids is one of the greatest things I remember about him.
12/9/10
A Cross-Cultural Childhood
Caleb Kobosh
In Port Elizabeth, South Africa, my family lived in a beautiful home on the corner of Honeysuckle and Iris Avenues. Our house sat in the middle of a lush yard overflowing with tropical plants and delightful fruit trees. My two siblings and I spent every minute of daylight playing in our safe, little jungle. Day after day, we laughed and played in that yard until we were out of breath or too hungry to keep going. But, as is the case for all children, I eventually grew older, and the wonder of my backyard grew fainter. I soon ventured out of my little garden into the big world of kindergarten and discovered yet another joy of life: friendship.
I met my best friend Andrew on the first day of class at Sunridge Primary School. Andrew was about my height and size and had dark brown hair. He was a cool, calm person and a born surfer-dude. We played rugby together at school, and, if we saved a little cash from our birthday cards and allowance, we rode our bikes to a local grocery and perused the candy section. The biggest piece of candy we could afford was a licorice stick. The soft, licorice sticks came unwrapped in a big, white, cardboard box. The sticks were about a foot long, and they were filled with icing. I can remember reaching into the licorice box and pulling out one or two of the long licorice sticks. I experienced the time of my life in Port Elizabeth, but at the end of my first year in school, my father embarked on a new course in life and moved us home to the United States.
I was seven years old when we left South Africa. I have a picture of that day; I am standing on the ground in front of the airplane that would take my family to the United States. My roller-blades are slung over my shoulder by their laces. They were one of the few possessions I could keep with me when we left South Africa. Days before our departure, I sold all my toys, gave away my two dogs, and told my best friend Andrew good-bye—forever. As I began to step up the stairs into the airplane, I paused a moment and realized that my feet might never again touch South African soil.
When we landed in the United States, I stepped out of the plane onto the frozen, snow-covered ground of Chicago. The sky was grey and the trees were bare; the wind bit at my face. I felt like I was in a foreign country, although I was a United States citizen. For the first time in my life I experienced culture-shock.
I had to learn many new American ways. I hated the American accent because it was incredibly nasal. I felt like Americans were pigs that stuffed their mouths with McDonald’s cheeseburgers and Diet Cokes. I was accustomed to playing rugby and cricket, but now I had to learn about football, basketball, and baseball. The hardest struggle was that the sun never shined in America. In South Africa the tropical sun shone brightly every day, but in America the sky seemed gray even when the sun was shining. One dull day I burst into tears and begged to return home to South Africa.
My sentiments towards the United States slowly changed as I learned to appreciate the culture. I fell in love with the American seasons, and I learned to ski and enjoy the snow. Today, I have just as much of a Wisconsin accent as anybody, and I even occasionally sneak over to McDonalds for a double cheeseburger. I played football for four years in high school and two years in college, and professional baseball games have become a favorite pastime. Honestly, I am more of an American today than I was ever a South African.
I realized my new American culture when I visited South Africa my sophomore year of high school. The people who knew me as a child laughed at my American accent, and I was uncomfortable with the South African way of life. I thought I would feel like I had come home, but I realized South Africa was no longer my home – to them I was an American. I came home to Wisconsin after three weeks in South Africa and finally felt like an American. For the first time I had reconciled my past with the present. I was beginning to discover my identity.
Over the years, I have grown to appreciate my personal history. I have learned to appreciate diversity and to cherish community. Sure, my experience has caused a few cultural set-backs, but the journey has been unforgettable.
12/8/10
From Enemies to Friends
Christina Leaf
Have you ever been so mad at someone that you wanted to kill him? If you answered yes, I would guess that you have a sibling. I have a sister that is a year and a half younger than I am. Courtney and I went to a small Christian school and were often in the same classes.
We also shared a room when we were younger. Our parents would order us to go clean our room. While I would get busy cleaning, Courtney would plop down in the middle of the floor to direct my efforts. I was not happy with this arrangement. In fact, I would yell at her until I got mad, and then I would go kick her. She would start crying, and we would get in trouble, again. Since this happened every time we were to clean our room, our parents decided that we needed separate rooms.
My mother also had to punish us for fighting during naptime. One time, Courtney even managed to knock out one of my baby teeth when we were playing tug-of-war with a sheet. In spite of our constant fighting, my mother told us over and over again that we would be very close as we got older. But Courtney and I refused to believe her.
I began to feel closer to her, however, when I was in eighth grade. We still fought often (to my mother’s chagrin), but we did not fight in front of anyone but family. In fact, Courtney began to protect me. One example of her protectiveness happened at school. I had few friends, and kids picked on me. But my sister, once she hit junior high, became very popular. I noticed that people did not pick on me as much as they had the year before. I wondered why since I had not changed until I caught her glaring at someone who was making fun of me. She seemed to have the attitude that she could pick on me as much as she wanted to—but no one else better try it while she was around.
I saw her protectiveness again later that same year. For a basketball game, my team did not have enough players. So, my coach (also my father) recruited Courtney. Although it was the only game that she played with us, we almost won for the first time that season.
In that game, the opposing team had some of my teammates from another team on it. I had played with them for two years, and they knew that I had a bad knee. Unfortunately. Those girls purposely threw my bad knee into a wall.
My sister got upset.
When Courtney gets upset on the basketball court, she does not start fouling; she gets intense. She was at least a year younger than the girls who had hurt me and should have been less skilled, but she started driving the ball, shooting free throws, and inspiring the rest of my team. She even managed to get both girls to foul out of the game. In fact, if there had been one minute more on the clock, my team might have won the game.
On another basketball team that year, the coach could not tell the two of us apart. This did not make sense to us. We look very different, play different positions on the court, and have different personalities. We did not even hang out with the same people. One game, our coach forgot to put me in the game. Courtney went up to her after the game and complained. When the coach said that she had put me in, Courtney got out the scorebook and proved to her that I had never gone in. I would never have brought it up, but my sister got angry on my behalf.
As we grew older, my sister’s protectiveness began to increase. In tenth grade, the last of my few friends at school graduated or moved away. I no longer had anyone to eat lunch with. Courtney brought over her group to sit with me. Although none of the people she was friends with became my good friends, I did not have to eat alone because of her intervention.
We now go to different colleges and are leading different lives. I am an English major, and she is an architectural engineering major. Although we are headed in different directions, I know that we will remain close friends as well as sisters.
In fact, we don’t even fight much anymore. I haven’t wanted to kill her for weeks.
Forget It, Willis
Deb Lew
She asked me the fatal question—the one that makes my eyes narrow and my blood pressure spike. Standing in downtown Chicago, the tourist naively called to me, unaware that she was inciting the wrath of this native Chicagoan.
“Would you tell me how to get to the Willis Tower?”
Not a chance. But I did offer to give her directions to the Sears Tower. She nodded hesitantly while I assured her that Chicago doesn’t have a Willis Tower, and then I proceeded to direct her to the famous landmark.
Other tourists have repeated her mistake, and each time, I refuse to acknowledge the usurping Willis name. Such antagonizing of tourists may seem juvenile, but these measures are necessary.
Like me, many Chicagoans have become guerillas, resorting to ruthless tactics to counter the London-based insurance group’s offensive. Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., launched their invasion last summer, when the company leased three floors of the Sears Tower. With those three measly floors came the building’s naming rights, and Willis proudly slapped their alien name on the guardian of Chicago’s signature skyline.
But just because Willis engraved their name on a sign doesn’t mean they can engrain it in our hearts and minds, and many Chicagoans enjoy defying the imposters. Willis brought this resistance upon themselves. They provoked us. They defaced one of our most beloved landmarks. They didn’t think we’d really let them get away with it, did they?
Oh, but they did. In fact, Willis CEO Joe Plumeri mentioned that Chicagoans could call the building “The Big Willie.” The Big Willie? A cutesy nickname that locals can fondly throw around? Dream on. Willis seems to have forgotten that, unlike naming rights, some things can’t be bought—like Chicagoan loyalty to our cherished landmarks.
Plumeri continued to say that “everybody in America knew who Willis was” because of the name change. That’s probably true, but not in the optimistic sense that Plumeri envisioned. Many enraged Chicagoans have responded with fury, and even Time magazine listed the name change among the top ten worst corporate name changes.
But did Willis have more than American publicity on their minds? Willis executives chose a strategic time to supplant the Chicago icon’s name—a time when the Second City appeared to be the first choice for the 2016 Olympics. The exposure would have been nice for Willis—having their building in countless camera shots during two weeks of international competition. I’m sure the thought crossed their minds once or twice. But if the plan was to have Chicagoans submissively repeating the Willis name for the 2016 Olympics, they failed. Epically.
Chicagoans have a strong sense of tradition, and many residents are still embittered against Macy’s for renaming the venerated Marshall Field’s. But this is different. This is personal.
Of course, the smiling Plumeri doesn’t mean to make it personal. He just wants the Chicagoans to be happy. He even told the Chicago Tribune that Chicagoans “can call it whatever they want.” That’s thoughtful of him, really, and I fully intend to take him up on that offer. I want to call it the Sears Tower, its rightful name, and so I will.
And I’m not alone. Many other Chicagoans resent the Willis invasion, and we will continue fighting back by verbally chipping away at the foundation of Willis’s trophy building. Willis holds the naming rights for only fifteen years—not long enough to change the city’s vocabulary, especially when Willis’s treachery is rehearsed to the next generation of loyal Chicagoans.
So go ahead. Ask for the Willis Tower. We'll stare blankly at you and shrug. We don't know what you're talking about, since we don't have a building with that name. Unless, of course, you mean some two-story building in the suburbs. But if you want that Chicago icon, the one with 110 stories and a sky deck, then you'll have to ask nicely. And you'll have to use its name, its real name—the Sears Tower.
He Sticks Closer than a Brother
Erica Ebel
I stood in the line of bridesmaids waiting for my friend Hope to come walking down the aisle. I glanced over at the groom, my brother Joel, bouncing on the stairs, anxiously peering down the rows to the doors. The organ sounded the “Wedding March”, the audience stood up, and the doors opened to show Hope wearing a tiered white dress and medium-length veil. Joel’s eyes lit up and his face could hardly contain his smile. I thought back to how much Joel had gone through to reach this point, and how we had come to be more than siblings.
Joel and I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My dad had accepted Christ but lived for his own pleasure. My mom was not saved. They married when they were 21 years old, too young and for the wrong reasons. Consequently, they divorced. My mom remarried immediately and decided to move to my stepdad’s hometown in Iowa. Three-year-old Joel had developed friendships at preschool and in the neighborhood. At 18 months old, I remembered nothing. When my mom moved us from Colorado to Iowa, Joel struggled with the transition more than I. Ironically, as I grew up I became more cynical and resistant towards my mom for making the family move. Joel, however, maintained respect and loyalty to Mom and this rubbed off on me. He made a point of taking me aside during struggles between my mom and me and reminding me that my mom had made a change out of love for us. Slowly, I began to develop a real relationship with my mom, and my relationship with Joel grew as well. Our friendship would draw us closer, especially when Joel accepted Christ as Savior.
The summer before his seventh grade year, Joel attended the Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ (FCA) baseball camp. The FCA functions to bring sports and faith together. While at this camp, Joel received Christ as his Savior. When he arrived back in Iowa, I could tell he was different. Instead of treating me well just because we were siblings, he treated me well because he had learned that Christ expected him to live as Christ lived. Joel also realized he needed to live in a home that taught the same values he now lived for. He began requesting that my mom let him move to Colorado, explaining that he wanted freedom to attend a church of his choice (my mom is a Jehovah’s Witness, and has always required us to attend meetings with her). At first, she resisted his requests; but the next year, Joel packed his bags and moved to Colorado. In the next four years, Joel grew consistently in his Christian life. The first two years after he moved, I resented him for leaving me. To spite him, and Christianity as a whole, I began seriously studying the Witnesses’ religion. Joel continued to speak to me about salvation many times and invited me to church with him every time I visited. Though he did not lead me to the Lord, Joel planted the seeds that led to my conversion.
Three months before I turned fourteen, I agreed to go with Joel to the winter camp at the Wilds of the Rockies Christian Camp in Colorado. During a night meeting, the preacher spoke about hell. I had heard of hell, but I knew few details. The Witnesses do not believe in the biblical view of hell, and I felt trapped between two extreme viewpoints. After I got home, my saved family gave me a missionary biography. As I read the story of this man’s struggle and victory of accepting Christ, I realized I had the truth presented to me and I had to make a choice. That day, I accepted Christ.
After my salvation, I wrestled with remaining in Iowa. I had no Christian friends at school, and I wasn’t growing because I had no one to disciple me. I made the same choice to leave Iowa during my sophomore year of high school. Joel and I began discussing college. As Joel considered college, he looked for one thing—a Christian college that had sports. Maranatha became his obvious choice, because they offer more intercollegiate sports than any other fundamental Baptist college. After his freshman year, he found that sports didn’t satisfy him. His first two years of baseball, he sat on the bench. After playing baseball for 14 years, Joel expected to play. God used this to change the focus of his life. Because he didn’t play much, he decided to quit before his senior year. He used this extra time to focus on things which affected his future. He declared his major as Pastoral Studies, but he was unsure of where God would use him. God also used his girlfriend Hope to change Joel’s focus. Joel had never dated anyone before meeting Hope. She comes from a Christian family, and her standards and positive influence encouraged and supported Joel in setting his own standards. Through his preaching classes and his relationship with Hope, Joel’s love for God grew and he looked for God’s direction for his life.
As his education drew closer to an end and his relationship with Hope grew more serious, Joel sought the Lord’s direction for his life. He began meeting with our youth pastor Josh Musgrave. Joel set up an internship with our home church and they assigned him to work with the youth group. Joel works well with teenagers, and was excited about the opportunity. That summer he and I taught youth Sunday school together, and his maturity amazed me. Many students at Maranatha would not describe my brother as mature; he spent most of his time goofing off in class and distracting friends studying in the dorm with silly impersonations and movie quotes. In Sunday school, however, Joel showed another side. He commanded your attention because it was obvious he had a passion for what he was teaching. When Joel spoke about God, his face lit up. He became animated and kept the youth group enwrapped in his every word. God used that summer to put Joel’s focus into youth ministries.
Joel accomplished that focus. After marrying Hope this summer, he became a youth pastor in Castle Rock, Colorado. His life choices impact the decisions I make today because I value my relationship with him. I admire the way he has led his life. He sticks closer than a brother; he is one of my best friends.
One Birthday in Three Countries
Hannah Blanton
“Stop!” the airport guard yelled as he walked quickly over to my dad. “You can’t use a camera in here!” My dad lowered the video camera from his eye and turned to face the angry guard.
“Can I just video my daughter opening her present? It’s her birthday today.”
“No!” returned the guard. “No cameras!”
After this abrupt interruption to my gift opening, I sat very still, almost scared to move. But my dad smiled reassuringly at me and my brothers and sisters. “Go ahead and finish opening it,” he said.
We weren’t too surprised by this “friendly” welcome in the airport. After all, we were in Vietnam waiting to catch a flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We had just spent a month in Singapore because of an attempted coup d'état in Phnom Penh. Thankfully, the threat was gone, so now we were trying to get back to our home in Cambodia. The day was August 13, 1997—my sixth birthday.
We had been in Singapore since the second week of July. When the coup broke out in Phnom Penh on the evening of July 5, my siblings and I quickly realized that the explosions we heard were not late July Fourth fireworks. During the next few days, my parents made plans to escape the country with an older missionary couple. We were worried that we might not be able to leave, since many other people were trying to leave the country as well. But we finally found just enough tickets for our two families on one of the last flights to Singapore.
Once we arrived in Singapore, we were welcomed by the nationals and several American missionary families. The one month we spent there was enjoyable but long. One highlight was going to the national zoo. My siblings and I loved watching the animal shows there. We also joined a church while in Singapore. I can still remember a baptismal service the congregation had one Sunday morning at a beach. I remember being thankful that I was not getting baptized in the ocean—I thought that would be a terrifying experience.
But despite our new friends and fun experiences, we missed Cambodia, the country God had called us to minister to. We kids especially missed Cambodia. It was an exciting place, and had already started to feel like home after only a few weeks of living there. One day, my parents heard that another missionary family had safely returned to Phnom Penh. We immediately made plans to return.
I was excited to discover that we would be flying back to Cambodia on my birthday. We would have to fly to Vietnam and then catch a flight to Cambodia, because Singaporean airlines still considered Cambodia too dangerous to fly into. The night before we left, I had my official birthday party. My mom and the other missionary wife came up with a cake, and everyone sang to me.
The morning of my birthday, we ate a quick breakfast in the missionaries’ apartment, then left for the airport. As we were walking across the hot pavement to the rickety plane we were to board, somebody came running to catch up with us. It was a sweet Singaporean lady who lived in the same apartment complex that we had been living in. She had often done our laundry for us, and she loved giving us kids treats when we came to pick up the laundry with our mom.
This time she had a special treat just for me. She handed me a plastic bag as she wished me a happy birthday. I peeked right away to see what was inside. The bag contained a huge chocolate chip cookie. I shyly thanked the lady as she gave me a quick hug. Once we boarded the tiny plane, my dad warned us to be ready for a rough ride. As the plane took off, my stomach seemed to leap into my throat.
Throughout the short flight the plane bounced and jostled us. I thought it was fun—I had never been on such a small plane before, and it felt like an amusement park ride to me. But my parents were grateful when we touched down safely in Vietnam. We later discovered that a plane from that same airline we were flying on crashed near the Phnom Penh airport a few weeks later.
Inside, Vietnam’s airport seemed bigger and more modern than the Cambodian airport. I was grateful as I noticed the air conditioning. All eight of us sat down in a long row of seats to wait for our connecting flight. That’s when my parents gave me my next present. And that’s when the guard thundered over to stop my dad from videoing my reaction as I opened the gift. I can’t even remember what that gift was.
I do remember a gift I received later that day, once we arrived in Cambodia. We got back to our house just before dark. My mom bought groceries from a nearby store that sold Western food, and we enjoyed eating the delicious tacos she made. Then we gathered in the living room where all of us kids were going to sleep, because our bunk beds had not yet arrived. My dad helped us push the two bamboo couches and chairs together to make a big square in the middle of the living room. The green cushions would make a comfortable mattress. All six of us kids piled onto our “bed.”
Then my mom handed me a gift bag. I opened it up to discover the book, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The book was exciting enough, but along with it came a pair of gloves that looked like bear paws and a headband with bear ears on it.
“Go ahead and try them on,” said my dad. This time he was able to capture the moment on camera.
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Here's Looking at Hollywood
Jacynda Johnson
I sat in my living room curled up on the couch with a fleece blanket tucked under my feet and a cup of apple cider resting nearby on the coffee table. My eyes were glued to the TV screen as Ilsa Lund and Rick Blaine said their goodbyes before Ilsa boarded the plane to Lisbon. I held my breath as Rick said, “Here’s looking at you kid,” and Ilsa tearfully turned away with Laslo. It was the perfect love story.
From that time on, I have been obsessed with classic movies. It didn’t help that my parents were firm believers in wholesome movies. Our movie collection was complete with Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Ginger Rogers, and many more. I once asked my mom what constituted as a wholesome movie. She said, with conviction, it was a movie that did not, in her words, “dumb down America.” Any movie or television show that remotely suggests stupidity, dirty humor, or a senseless plot was not allowed in the house. So I enjoyed my old movies with my parents laughing right alongside me.
In high school, I discovered quickly that most of my peers did not grow up with these wholesome movies. "Did you see this movie?" became one of the most frustrating questions to answer. The answer was usually no. I didn’t watch South Park or the Simpsons or most of the popular releases that became the topic of school conversation. As I moved through the halls of my school, I slowly discovered that those funny jokes and random one-liners originated from a movie and not from my friend as I had thought. When I sensed a movie joke starting, I zoned out from the conversation because I had no clue what they were talking about. It was easier to do that rather than ruin the joke as they tried to explain the situation to me—if they even attempted to explain it—which many did not.
While I couldn’t stand the humor of Napoleon Dynamite, I laughed after Audrey Hepburn asked Cary Grant if there was a Mrs. Joshua, in Charade—it was the third time he changed his name in the movie and each time she inquired about his marital status. Scenes like this—a little line, a phrase, an inflection of someone’s voice—would bring me back to different scenes of Rear Window, Vertigo, Gaslight, or To Catch a Thief. I could sit all day watching James Stewart and John Wayne drawl their way through a western. I would read up on the lives of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and then watch the movies they made together. I was definitely obsessed.
In many ways, I felt that I had missed out in life; I felt as if I had been born in the wrong era. Although I have no appreciation for dresses or skirts, to this day, I felt I should have been parading around with scarves tied around my hair and driving in a 1950's Chevrolet with sleek fins curving off the back. I imagined that my mother was the persona of June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver and that life consisted of sleek dresses, high heels, heavily hair-sprayed hair-dos, and the fashion statements of Audrey Hepburn. But I lived in the 2000’s, not the 1950’s. Instead, I could only watch and wish from an era of technology, Lady Gaga, and cheap versions of the styles of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
It wasn't until I went to college that I found a kindred spirit with the same love for old movies and Studio Era celebrities. My roommate Alisa had an even larger collection of classic movies than I did. We would spend our weekends at her house and enjoy the antics of Bing Crosby, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, and Clark Gable. We laughed and giggled and critiqued each movie. We declared our never-ending love for our favorite actors and defended them when the other unjustly criticized their performance. We were filled with laughter for the rest of the night and would bring up our favorite lines over and over, laughing harder each time.
The enjoyment that we shared over our beloved old movies never transitioned to a newer film. While Alisa and I watched the X-Men series and The Last Song, we weren’t as excited as we talked about them later. These were good movies in their own way, but we didn’t experience the bouts of laughter as we did watching Cary Grant’s priceless expressions in Arsenic and Old Lace as he dealt with two harmless old aunts who had murdered thirteen men as a means of helping them out of their misery.
Although I watch films made today, I can never enjoy them as much as I do a classic movie. The plots, the humor, the characters—they’re all different today. Studio Era films are innocent while today's movies are intertwined with rash emotions, sexual content, violence, and language. The humor and wit of Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman are missing from today’s comedies. Instead, we are fed slapstick, senseless humor. There is no more battle of the sexes through the wits but rather through gender wars. Women depict tough cops or battered victims of sordid acts who compete with their male counterparts to prove who is better. The popular TV shows of today, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Law and Order, True Blood, NCIS, render loveless marriages, vampires, promiscuity, unspeakable crimes, and content not appropriate for families. I’ll stick to I Love Lucy.
Even today’s acting is second-rate. CSI: Miami’s characters fade out from the screen with the clichéd Grim Expression; rarely does the viewer see any elation or joy in these TV shows. But I sit through Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and try to pick up every expression, every emotion, and every hint of the plot from the actors. The subtle hints intrigue me far more than the blatant acting of Julia Roberts or Will Ferrell. As I watch Gaslight and Wait Until Dark, I can see the thoughts of Audrey Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman as they discover how they’ve been tricked. Bergman’s portrayal of a woman driven to insanity by her husband is a priceless performance and a fascinating psychological study.
I’ll always prize my classic movies over today’s hits. The superior acting, the intelligent humor, and the wholesome plots appeal to my desire for the good ol’ days. I can sit through an old classic movie, smile the whole way through, and leave satisfied.
“Arbeit Dacht Frei”
Janessa Bjornstad
The scene was like the feeling of devastation at Ground Zero after 9/11. The solemn silence was like the giving of respect at a funeral. The emotion was like the saddening tears of a mother losing her child. This was the experience I had at the Jewish concentration camp in
Moments before I entered the gate into the concentration camp, I saw the words Arbeit Dacht Frei staring at me. These German words translate into “Work makes (one) free.” This phrase represents the infamous worldview of Nazi Germany during World War II. As I entered the gate, before me laid rows of barracks with watch towers connected to a brick wall enclosing the barracks. The brick wall surrounding the whole camp was around 20 feet high with barbed wire fastened at the top. I realized that this is where over 40,000 Jewish men, women, and children had died. I was walking on the same ground where these innocent lives were taken.
I soon glanced over at one of the many watch towers at the camp, and I imagined seeing a Nazi soldier standing guard with his rifle on his shoulder, waiting to catch an escapee or to punish a prisoner making a mistake in his assigned task.
As I gazed over the two long rows of what were once barracks, I imagined what the barracks would have looked like if I were visiting the camp in 1945. A scene of old, grey brick buildings with barred windows was before me. I envisioned skinny, unhealthy men, women, and children standing outside the barracks looking at me with pleading, hurting eyes that cried out for mercy from the endless cruelty being forced upon them. I felt so hopeless, knowing that I could do nothing to help them.
Now, as I entered one of the barracks, I saw stacks of wooden bunk beds that certainly would not hold every prisoner that lived in the camp. The floor was dirty, and the beds looked as if they were made out of thin boards that were barely held together by a few rusty nails.
I left the barracks and soon entered a brick building with few windows. As I stepped inside, I walked down a hallway and entered a room that looked as if it were a shower room. But I realized that what I thought were sprinklers in the ceiling were really gas filters. This room was disguised as the shower house, but it really was a gas chamber where many men, women, and children were deceived into their death.
As I walked further into the brick building, I stepped into a large room that I thought was a kitchen because of the three large brick stoves. But as I continued walking in farther, I saw that these weren’t the ovens for cooking food, but for cremating prisoners who had died. I saw a small hole used as an opening in front of the stove with a wooden, cloth stretcher lying underneath the hole. Then, I noticed the three large brick chimneys connected to the top of each stove, stretching to the ceiling of the room. I glanced over to observe the reactions of my other tour members, and to describe it in one word –we were speechless.
I cannot even begin to explain how I felt as I walked through the concentration camp. Just to think of what took place there was more than I could fathom. My stomach was tied in one jumbled knot, and my sadness turned into anger. How could Hitler – one man – demand such cruelty? And how could so many Nazi soldiers just watch innocent people suffer, not feeling one bit of guiltiness or remorse? The concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, will always be embedded in my mind as a place where innocent people suffered. This suffering did not exemplify the Nazi party’s motto of Arbeit Dacht Frei (“Work makes one free). The prisoners’ work at the concentration camp really did not make them free, but resulted in them losing their lives. Arbeit Dacht Frei is a phrase that will always remind me of the Nazi’s deceitful way of leading their prisoners to their deaths.
Pain in the Neck
Jennifer George
“Oh, be careful!” I called to Olivia, my two-year-old niece, as she jumped on top of the checkered comforter on my bed. My heart skipped a beat as she landed too close to the bed’s edge, oblivious to the potential danger that she was in. “Be careful, or you might break your neck!” I suppose my over-cautiousness and worry comes from a childhood event that I recall vividly.
My cheeks glowed and my nose ran as I hurriedly shoveled the heavy snow off our deck. “Shovel it right over here!” my twin sister Erin called to me from below. The warm lights from inside the house glimmered and the porch light that Mom had turned on illuminated the pile of snow we were feverishly building. The snow fell, lightly covering the part of the deck we already shoveled.
Snow had been falling since earlier that afternoon when Erin and I had come home from elementary school. We raced inside to change into our snow gear. We pulled on boots, hats, and gloves and snagged some warm oatmeal-raisin cookies off the counter. “Mom, will you please zip my coat up?” I asked, my mouth still filled with a cookie.
“It might be easier if you put your gloves on after you zipped your coat,” Mom said shaking her head and smiling as she helped me. By the time we got all our snow gear on, we were sweating. “Quick, let’s go outside before I melt,”
The sky was grey as we entered the silent winter wonderland; snow was falling steadily. The cold, crisp air felt good on our flushed cheeks as we crunched down our driveway towards our meeting place. Our neighbor from across the street, Derek, waited impatiently for us at the end of the driveway. “Are you ready?”
“Are you?” I asked. I threw the snowball I’d been hiding behind my back, hitting Derek squarely in the chest; then the war began. The three of us scattered to our respective snow forts on each side of our driveway and began making more ammunition, while watching for any attacks from the enemy. The war lasted for several minutes, until we got distracted and decided to build a snowman.
Soon we heard a familiar call, “Derek! Time for supper!” After he left, Erin and I ventured into the backyard, wandering around waiting for a brilliant idea to come to us. Then we saw the un-shoveled deck awaiting us.
“Let’s use the snow from the deck to make a giant sledding hill!” Erin exclaimed. (Of course the hill would be huge to us only because we were in fourth grade.) So that’s what we did.
Finally, after we had scraped all the snow off the deck onto our big sledding hill, we were ready to try it. Erin and I clumsily ran through the snow to the shed to retrieve our hot pink sleds that we had gotten for Christmas the previous year. We dragged the sleds behind us across the yard back to our hill. “Funny,” we both observed. “The hill is as tall as our sled is long.” Oh, well. We had come this far—we couldn’t stop now.
I was the first to go down. As I set my sled on the top of the hill, my sled looked like a teeter-totter, balancing on the peak. Then, I quickly jumped in the sled; it moved a few inches and then quite abruptly, the sled stopped. “Well, that was fun!”
“Okay, it’s my turn now. Move outta the way!” Erin cried, determined not to miss out on any fun.
What happened next could have won the prize for America’s Funniest Home Videos, but it terrified me at the time. As my sled had stopped,
“Erin!” I ran through the snow to reach my sister, terror pulsing through my veins. My first thought was, “She’s dead!” I knelt down beside her and heard muffled laughter. I pulled
No, she was not dead. In fact, she was laughing. Of all the nerve to laugh at a time like this. “
“Oh, that didn’t hurt—it was fun!” Erin lifted her chin defiantly. Fortunately, at that time, Mom called us in for supper. We trudged into the house with our wet clothes; Erin was laughing at how silly she must have looked, but I was still perturbed that Erin found the situation funny.
Since Erin could hardly move her neck the next morning, we took her to the doctor where we found out that her neck was sprained. In fact, she had to refrain from physical activity for a while. I knew it couldn’t be funny!
That trauma has affected me to this day. So when I see someone doing something dangerous (particularly something that would injure their neck), like Olivia’s jumping on the bed, I get a little concerned. And once in a while, I laugh at the picture of Erin’s head getting stuck in the snow—after all, it was a little funny.
Rocking Rockford's World
John Hines
I haven’t always felt the way I do about our football team. When I first came to Maranatha Baptist Bible College, I wasn’t interested in football. I was a naysayer like a lot of the campus. The football team was not all that good—my freshman year they were 2-7. And the next year they were 0-10. But my junior year I went out for the team. In some ways, I’m still not sure why. I didn’t know anything about football, but I just wanted to play a team sport. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know that the team would go 0-10 again that year. The losing streak totaled 33 games. But my senior year, we changed that.
Rockford College was our opponent for the last game of the season of my senior year. Up to that game, both teams were 0-9. Both teams had struggled against teams that outsized them. Maybe my focus was wrong, but throughout the season, I kept asking God for a win. When Saturday came, it was one of the coldest days of the season. The November wind whipped across the field, chilling everyone to the bone, but most of us were too focused on the game to care. Athletes are always nervous before a game, but this was different. We knew this was it—the game everyone had been waiting for.
I am a second string player. As one of the smaller linemen on the team, I play some special teams and occasionally defensive end. I can get frustrated when I don’t get a lot of playing time. But not against Rockford. I wanted our best players in there the entire time to get the best results. It wasn’t about playing time; it was about the team giving everything.
For most of the game, it felt like neither team could move the ball offensively. Our defense shut them down again and again. Rockford got into our red zone twice but we stopped them both times. We ran a new type of defense, putting a lot of pressure on the quarterback, with a couple sacks, and multiple stops at the line of scrimmage. But our offense could not move the ball much better than Rockford could.
Our quarterback threw the ball beautifully, but our receivers seemed to have wooden hands. Pass after pass, we would hold our breaths, waiting for the ball to land in the receiver’s hands, only for him to drop it or completely miss it.
Neither team scored in the first half, but we didn’t care. We were still alive and came into the second half ferociously. The third quarter was much the same as the first half, with not much happening. But then we did it. We scored at the end of the third quarter with a short pass to our running back, who trucked into the end-zone.
As expected, we were going nuts. I was so excited I almost forgot to run onto the field for the extra point. The touchdown was like nitro for our engine. We knew we could do it. We could beat these guys.
The fourth quarter made the game feel how any football game should feel: nail-biting intense. We forced four interceptions, but also fumbled on our 20-yard line. Our linebacker ran the fourth interception back for a 90 yard touchdown with only a minute left in the game. Somehow, they scored with only seconds left, but it didn’t matter. We won. We did it. Thirty-three games, 3 years, and countless pessimists later, the Maranatha Crusaders had won a game. And I was there.
As the last seconds of the clock ran out, Maranatha players and fans stormed the field. I had never been part of something like this before. I had a crowd screaming their lungs out for my team. Grown men were crying, everyone was hugging and cheering. I wasn’t emotional until our center, a senior like me, grabbed me and started crying on my shoulder. Then I lost it.
As I walked off the windy field to the locker room, I realized my legs were shaky. It truly felt like a dream. I had never won in football, much less be a part of a team that broke the longest current losing streak in the NCAA. Winning that game was one of the best moments of my life.
Saltines and IEDs
Josh Akerberg
Whenever I sit down with my favorite writer’s fuel (sardines, saltines, and Moxie), I am always drawn to one of my favorite childhood memories. When I was a child, my parents faithfully took Ethan, myself and our five other siblings to church. In fact, one Tuesday a month my mother would don the denim skirt, put my sister’s hair in pigtails, and they would head out for the monthly Women’s Mission Fellowship meeting. I loved those Tuesday nights because dad would come home from work, and we would have a guy’s night. Mom would usually feed my brother Ethan and me dinner before she left. But we always loved it when Dad was in charge—he gave us the best snacks: sardines and saltines.
During my adolescent years, I did not get along well with my Ethan or my dad. But the good memories that I have, I hold precious. When we were little, Ethan and I were going to take the world by storm. We were the modern day Lewis and Clark. Every day after we finished, school we would hop into our camo fatigues, disappear beyond the ferns into the wilderness of our back yard, and stay outside till supper.
When we were cooped inside the house, we would play cowboys and Indians or Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie; more than once, he and I grinned down (teddy) bears in the living room closet. We would turn our bunk-beds into the Alamo and everything else in the room into Santa Anna’s army. We knew our history, so every time we fought the Alamo, we fought to the death.
Ethan was a good older brother; he taught me everything that he thought I needed to know. He even taught me when it was okay to talk to Mom and Dad.
One particular night on a Sunday in October of 1996 comes to mind. I was a horrible child that night, so my dad sent me to bed early, promising to punish me if he saw me again. As I was lying in my bottom bunk, thinking about what I had learned in church that morning, I knew that night I had done wrong, and I knew the consequences of my actions. I knew I was going to Hell. I asked Ethan if he knew how to be saved, and he told me to go talk to Dad. “No way!” I said, “He’ll spank me!” Ethan reassured me that my dad would not punish me, and after a little more of my brother’s convincing, I crept down the winding staircase. I accepted Christ as my Savior that night because my brother encouraged me to talk to Dad.
Growing up with Ethan, however, was not all fun and games. We, like all good brothers, also fought often. As Ethan grew up, he wanted nothing to do with my childish games. That was hard for me. He wanted to hang out with his older, teenage friends. In hindsight, I completely understand, but it was hard to accept then.
Ethan was four years older me, so he was always exiting the stage of life that I was just beginning. I looked up to him; I thought he was wise; I thought he knew what he was doing. He was popular, athletic, and smart. I wanted to be like him.
One day, however, that all changed. Mom and Dad called Ethan up to their room (always a sign of serious trouble) and talked to him for what seemed like hours. While they were talking, I crept up the stairs to hear what the conversation was about, and I could tell that he had done something awful. I overheard enough of their conversation to know exactly what had happened. At that moment I began to hate my brother. From that day on, I would never admit that I looked up to him. My older brother let me down and it took years for me to forgive him.
I’m not sure when that sentiment changed, but I know it has. Somewhere around his senior year of college and my freshman year, God worked in our hearts, especially mine. After Ethan graduated, he became an officer in the Marine Corps as a combat engineer. He leads his men well, and they respect him, just like his little brother does.
As I am preparing myself to follow his footsteps into the military after I graduate, I am no longer trying to shirk the stigma that I’m doing something because Ethan did. Ethan became an officer in the military, and it was a good idea. So I’m going to do it too.
The gravity of this decision, however, did not reach me until this evening. Before I sat down to write this, my sister forwarded me an email from my mother. In that email, Ethan passively mentioned that his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) recently. He and his men remained safe in the blast, but the blast shook them.
As I reflect on the fact that I almost lost my brother, I am forced to think of our childhood. As we are both taking steps to defend our country, we are no longer reenacting the Alamo in our bunk-bed. He is experience real combat with real men trying hard to kill him. He is scheduled to come back home by Christmas. If he makes it home, I will be sure to crack open a can of sardines with him, and let him know that no matter what, he’s still my brother.
Life of a Young Sailor
Josh Moore
My fascination with the sea began when I was a child. Growing up near Annapolis, Maryland meant I was surrounded by sailors and watermen. The sailors encouraged me to begin sailing and join the Navy. My Grandmother Moore lived in a small, white house beside the Magothy River. I often played in the dark water of the Magothy and searched for crabs on the barnacle-covered pilings of her neighbor’s pier. The Moore family’s impact on me gave me a passion for sailing.
My dad and three of his brothers loved to sail. Uncle Jack, the oldest of the siblings, was a seasoned sailor who loved the water; his leathery skin attested to the long sails he often took. During the Vietnam War, Uncle Bob experienced exciting adventures in the Navy. My dad and Uncle Kevin, only a few years apart in age, often went sailing together on the Magothy River and Chesapeake Bay. My dad and uncles told me many exciting stories about sailing that made me desire to become a sailor.
The most amazing story that my family ever told me captured my imagination as a boy and continues to fascinate me today. Twenty-five years ago, my dad, Uncle Bob, and Uncle Jack decided to go on a tremendous voyage. Along with their friend Cliff, a navigator in the United States Navy, they embarked on a fantastic expedition from California to Hawaii. The sailors acquired a twenty-nine foot sailboat and stocked it with supplies for their two-week passage across the Pacific Ocean. Due to complications, the intended two week trip actually took over three weeks. They sailed out of sunny San Diego harbor when my dad was only sixteen years old. The following is an excerpt from my dad’s memoirs about the final days of the voyage:
We were travelling ahead of a tropical depression and the swells were thirty foot and the wind was very strong. This also made navigation difficult again due to the cloud cover. Toward the end of the trip I remember getting very concerned because there was no way to confirm where we were and we did not have the food or supplies to reach Japan. When Jack began to show fatigue and was looking behind us for the Hawaiian Islands, I realized that we may be in trouble. The sailing was exciting now though. We were literally surfing up and down the swells.
The tale that my dad often told me about his voyage instilled in me a desire to experience similar adventures. I asked him to teach me to sail, so he began taking me on little sailing adventures near our house.
Our family took many sailing trips across the Magothy River. The Moore family owned a small catamaran sailboat. The catamaran had two long banana-shaped pontoons, connected by a canvas and a large mast in the middle of the vessel. I remember embarking on a short trip to Dutchship Island in the middle of the Magothy River. After we sailed the catamaran up onto a large sandbar, we explored the forest of the enchanting island and sprawled out on the beach. My brothers and I felt like we were in an adventure story of our own. Dad kept taking me on sailing trips and when I got older he began to teach me how to sail.
When I turned twelve years old, my dad taught me to sail our small two-man sailboat. We took this boat on a family vacation to a lake in Maryland, and I sailed the boat all over the lake with my dad. My aunt saw us sailing and asked me to take her on a ride across the lake. It scared me to think of sailing a boat without dad on board, but I agreed to go. Before my aunt got into the boat, my dad told me to take the boat across the lake on my own. I protested, “Dad, the water is too rough and I don’t want to sail by myself.” He told me, “It will be fine, just sail across and back, if you have any trouble I’ll come get you.” Before I could speak, he shoved the boat away from the pier and I was off. The extremely rough winds blew me across the lake at a frightening pace. When I attempted to turn the boat and return to shore, the wind blew so hard that it tangled the ropes in the rudder. I panicked because I was unable to steer the boat and was caught facing upwind. Finally, I managed to turn the boat toward shore, but the ropes remained tangled in the rudder. I reached the shore and refused to sail for the rest of the day.
Although I was traumatized by this experience, my desire to sail grew stronger because I began reading sailing adventure stories, and my heart longed to sail again. As I grew older, I came close to joining the Navy. My family supported midshipmen at the Naval Academy and they came over to our house on the weekends. These sailors instilled in me a desire to join the Navy and sail the oceans in the service of my country. My love for the sea almost led me to become a sailor, but the Lord directed me far from the sea to the cold, frozen land of Wisconsin. Although I go to school in Wisconsin, my deep love for the ocean makes me look forward to returning to my sailing life in Annapolis.
Milwaukee Rep's "Carol" Is a Fresh Take on a Traditional Favorite
Kent Halsey
The presentation of a familiar work challenges any theater company, and few dramatic works in the English language are as familiar to audiences as A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens’s famous tale has remained an essential part of Christmas tradition since its publication over 150 years ago. How can anyone hope to avoid a tired retread when performing such a commonplace work? They can learn from the example set at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater.
The Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s production of A Christmas Carol offers a creative and vigorous rendition of the time-honored story. Director Joseph Hanreddy works from a script he co-adapted with writer Edward Morgan in 1998. Their adaptation retains the traditional feel of Dickens’s writing while fleshing out some plot details and trimming away excess weight.
The result stays respectful to the source material, keeping intact all of the beloved lines which audiences can’t help but quote mentally as they watch. At the same time, this version expounds on some of the story’s details, deepening themes such as the emotional connection between Scrooge and his late sister’s son, Fred. We witness a foreshadowing of the future when businessman Jacob Marley visits young Scrooge at Fezziwig’s shop and extends the partnership offer that changes Scrooge’s life.
The climactic scene in which Scrooge sees a vision of his own tombstone has been tweaked; here he watches in horror as two gravediggers carelessly dump his body into a common burial pit. This ignominious fate lends a unique and frightening twist to the original version.
Just as welcome as these additions are the minor subtractions which are made. Some superfluous dialogue has been cut from the script in order to maintain a brisk pace, though nothing major was removed. Most viewers will be hard pressed to spot the deletions, but the cumulative effect propels the action.
One significant change for the better involves the relocation of Scrooge’s visit with Fred at the end of the play. Rather than joining the Christmas day party at Fred’s house, Scrooge enters a church, nudges his way into a row and joyfully sings along with the carols to the shock of his fellow pew-mates. Here the uncle and nephew share their familiar reconciliation, but the setting powerfully enhances the scene.
Most importantly, all of the additions to the script blend naturally with the classic Dickensian dialog. Hanreddy and Morgan matched the style of the original script, and their material never breaks the illusion with inappropriately modern phrases. The writers show great skill in mimicking Dickens’s trademark humor, and even those viewers familiar with the original may not realize some of the jokes are new.
James Pickering, a mainstay of Milwaukee stages who has played Scrooge many times at the Pabst, turns in a solid, if slightly underwhelming performance. He avoids the trap of playing Scrooge as a deranged lunatic, but in doing so he errs slightly on the safe side; too often he stands around listlessly while the visions unfold before him. His post-transformation Scrooge, however, glows with the giddy laughter that we expect from the character.
The rest of the cast features superb depth. Bob Cratchit is portrayed by Lee E. Ernst, who infuses the clerk with appropriate warmth. Jonathan Smoots impresses in his dual roles as Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Present. He proves memorable first as the chilling specter and later as the jovial spirit, using his booming voice with equal success for both characters. Grant Goodman’s sprightly Fred is witty yet kind-hearted. Strong actors fill out the remaining roles without a single letdown in the bunch.
The remarkable set design deserves praise for its inventiveness. Windows of interior scenes give glimpses of passersby in the street, filling the background with bustle and energy. Painted outdoor backdrops provide the stage with airy openness when necessary. Each scene has its own walls and set pieces which are instantly swapped out from above during the course of the play; the effect produces seamless transitions as well as welcome visual activity. One of the most striking sets, the backdrop for the Christmas Future scene, is a towering stone wall which evokes London’s old Newgate prison and intimidates through clever use of forced perspective.
Finally, this production of A Christmas Carol, while technically not a musical, incorporates plenty of Christmas carols. The music bookends nearly every scene, representing a broad selection of traditional English songs. All of these are performed by the cast, and whether sung by individuals, small ensembles or entire choirs, the music is always well done. The addition fits so naturally that any music-less production of the play would feel dull and drab in comparison.
This version of the treasured Christmas production stands out from the crowded seasonal landscape. The adaptation preserves all of the familiar elements of Dickens’s classic while adding material that genuinely enhances the story, making the experience both comfortable and new. Plenty of cities will see routine, uninspired productions of A Christmas Carol this Christmas season. Milwaukee has something special to call its own.
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