That man must be exhausted. Not from sitting there on that park-bench waiting for his daughter to finish playing, but from his life in general. He works two jobs, for the Post office in the day and a dangerous track inspection job for Transit at night. Instead of using free, valuable time to sleep and re-energize himself during the day, he spends the extra time he has with his two sons and daughter out in Queens. Also in Queens, is the mother of his daughters other son, similar in age, who he still spends time with also even though he and the woman aren't together anymore, meaning that boy is no longer his step-son, yet he sticks around. His daughter, in Queens, has Soccer Practice on Saturdays, Church on Sundays, the step-son has soccer practice and needs to be taken to the library often. The other two sons, one only looking for support at his football games and the other, too old for the "quality time" spent at the park or bike-riding. Where is the mom? Probably out with her newest boyfriend again, the youngest girl complains. After a very tough breakup and permanent separation, the game of "watching your ex with new people without letting it bother you" begins. Knowing the new boyfriend comes by his children doesn't bother the man MUCH, but interestingly when they used the word "cool" and him surprisingly took him over the top. "Daddy, he has a motorcycle its so cool". "His house is huge!" "He does this trick where you take the balloon and..."
Never been called cool, and now will never get the chance to be. Using all his free time in his life to create impacts on his children's lives, only by simply being there. Not enough sleep in his life led to lack of focus in his night job, an incident is what they called it. And his son, I, now misses that "quality time" he thought he was too cool for. You think that new boyfriend will take the kids to practice in his cool motorcycle?
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Chris,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your story because I felt it represented the stereotypical cool person as the lame person compared to the father who was the "real cool" person.
Throughout your story you build the apparent "real cool" person as someone who doesn't have enough time for himself, but makes time for the more important personal things in life. The stereotypical cool guy was only showed as a flashy guy but did not show much appreciation towards the kids.
At the very end you completed your story to question what is really cool, the guy with the motorcycle? Or the one who cares and spends most of his time with his kids.
Hey Chris. I really liked reading your story. You showed the typical cool, as the boyfriend with the motorcycle, and you showed the hard working dad who's dedicated to his kids. I like how you started the story by talking about the dad like someone was watching him. I don't know who you specifically were thinking about as cool, but I like that you spent most of the story writing about the dad.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
-Hannah
interesting story choice, you chose to talk about a divorce dad and how his son thinks his mothers new boyfriend is cool because of a motorcycle rather making a story about some cool kid in school and how everyone wants to be like them.
ReplyDeleteCHRIS!
ReplyDeleteThis was your story?
Andy read it in class two Friday's ago and I was blown away.
I'm pleasantly surprised it was your story, I never knew how well you wrote. You did a fantastic job with this assignment, for one because you didn't write about the typical type of cool but the more admirable type, like a father who would do anything for his kids. For two you wrote about a realistic scenario as opposed to a fantasy heroine like most of us wrote about.
I thought it was brilliant how you included the mother's boyfriend as the "typical" form of cool that most kids would idolize more because of his flashy luxuries, but that in the end it took the death of the father for the kid to realize how very amazing his own father was.
You used examples like working two jobs but always making time for the children in his life, including one who weren't even biologically his, to embody how he put others first, a quality most kids overlook in their parents.
Very very well done, I plan on looking at you blog more often and look forward to reading what else you have contribute to this class.
:D
- Alicia
I have a friend who lives a similar lifestyle. His dad is always busy and he rarely finds time to spend quality time with him. The father in this short story seems to really care about his kids. As for the "cool" motorcycle guy, f%^k him. Good thing this is a made up story, least we cant get personal here. All that cool stuff goes out the window when you got responsibilities and kids. Being cool, in the end, can only take you so far.
ReplyDeletewow chris deep. i really liked it. first off cause shit like this happens and often times the children think the rich person is cool when in reality its all superficiality covering up what the person can't buy which is personality and aimiability. i also liked this because unlike other kids in the course you chose to portray a cool adult rather than a cool kid. nice work.
ReplyDeletei try i try
ReplyDelete