running in the family pt 2.

In the second reading, you see that the disoriented(disorganized) feeling is seemly intentional. He seems to want you to feel disoriented, as if to make you feel like he does as he sorts through his family's history. He's searching for the truth in the legends and stories of the past, all of which are embellished and changed by the people who tell them. Everyone remembers them differently. (On page 105 he shows us this by telling the story interview style. So you can see how the story changes, and people embellished the details.) 

He's also leading you through his experience of revisiting the place he grew up in but has not been to in years. He's rediscovering his own past. 

He also continues giving you facts about Ceylon. For example, he brings up the maps his brother has of the different shapes Ceylon was thought to have through the years. And how that shape changing kind of mirrors how the natives mirrored whatever culture came to claim the island. Or at least they did until the next culture showed up. The natives drew their own history, practices, beliefs and traditions inland. They shared little with the outsiders who didn't intermarry, and even those were still mostly outside it all.

In this reading he includes poems. I love that he did this. It adds to the bombardment of your senses. It also gives a better feel for the country, and where he comes from. I love The Cinnamon Peeler. It's so pretty. All of the poems are nice. They flow really well with the story. The song, (or at least I assume it is a song) Sweet like a Crow, made me laugh. Its so unpoetic, so non-lyrical, but works somehow.

1200 word memoir

            My childhood is riddled with images of my paternal grandfather. I’ve been told my first babysitter was my paternal grandparents, growing up I spent countless hours there, and every holiday, no matter how small the family gathered at my grandparents.

            My grandfather was the epitome of a patriarch. His word was law. (No matter how hard my father tried to not follow it.) He was also very opinionated. The funny thing is he wasn’t overly obvious about his opinions. He didn’t voice them loudly or frequently. But they were there nonetheless. For example, he had strong opinions on what were appropriate toys for boys and girls. Boys played with cars, action figures, and played sports. Girls played with dolls, Barbies, and other girly things. It took four years of me asking for a remote control car for Christmas before I realized this fact. Every year I asked, barring one, my younger brother received the remote control car he asked for, while I received the other “girl appropriate” gifts I had requested.

The one exception to these gender roles was sports. He encouraged my cousin Lauren and I to play softball, and any other sport we wanted. He bought us bikes, and rollerblades. However, he never once watched either of us play. I think that was his way of keeping the gender roles, but still supporting us by listening to our accounts of the games.  He watched every one of my cousin Byron’s baseball games, many of my brother’s, my other cousin Michael, and Ricky’s football.

Once when I was about eight, my grandparents came to watch me and my brother play, (in truth, they were there to see my brother, but I was playing at the same time) my grandmother came to watch me, while my grandpa watched my brother. About the third inning, my team was on the field, I out in right field, or maybe it was one of the times I was at second, (I was on the right side of the field, giving me a perfect view of what happens next) my grandfather comes walking over. The only way to get to the younger girls softball field was to walk down a narrow path between the older girls diamond, and the minor B boy’s field. I watched him walk over to my grandma, who was sitting in a folding blue and white striped lawn chair. He spoke to her for a minute, and she shook her head. He must have insisted, and grandma caved. He walked off, but not before smiling out at me in right field, or second, and waved. Grandma waited until the third out, and I was in the dugout. She smiled sadly at me, told me I was doing a good job, but she was going to watch Josh now, “to be fair”. 

            I remember being a bit confused, but really thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until my mom apologized in the car, that I began to see what had happened. This is not to say my grandfather was being mean, he simply believed what he believed, and that was that. He loved me; I was one of his favorites. So, it was nothing against me.

            Now, I mentioned how he had favorites. There was me, my cousin Bryon (he was the favorite of the favorites, nothing he did could be wrong), and my other cousin Ricky (later on). So, of the eight grandchildren he had, three got special treatment.  Now, my cousin Lauren is only a year older than me, and growing up we lived next door to each other. Until the age of 10, on Lauren’s birthday I too got a gift, frequently it was the same thing she received. On my birthday, generally she didn’t get anything.

            I remember her sixth birthday. We were having the party at her house, and all the kids were running around in heat of the July sun in our front yard. When grandpa pulled up in his cherry red Chevy truck, with two hot pink girls bikes. I was thrilled. I’d wanted a bike for a while, and I knew one was for me. Lauren was not quite as thrilled as I was, because she to knew one was for me. Grandpa climbed out of the truck, greeted Lauren, and proceeded to pull the first bike out of the bed of the truck. He sits it down in front of her, and says “Happy Birthday.” He waits until Lauren climbs on hers, to pull mine down, which I of course being five was excitedly waiting for. For once I had not yet taken off my shoes, which is odd, normally once I was out the door they were off, and this proved to my advantage, since my parents would have stopped me from riding the bike without shoes.

            Grandpa smiled at Lauren riding her bike, before looking for me, and finding me not far, he smiles down at me, his beard wrinkling, and turns back to the truck bed. He pulls the second bike out, and sits it in front of me. I excitedly go to climb on, but he stops me. I don’t remember exactly what he said to my five-year-old self, only that it was something about riding it later. My mom joined us, and told me to thank grandpa for the bike. Which meant I enthusiastically hugged his legs saying thank you. Mom then carried my bike up to the porch where it remained until after the party, when I immediately begged for it to be taken off the porch for me to ride.

            This went on for years. At Christmas, and Easter, we received the same gifts. One year for Christmas we both received the brand new Ariel Barbie, the one with the color changing tail. I was so happy. And to me it was even cooler that Lauren too had one. It meant to my 7 year old self we could play with them together. But to Lauren it was the last straw. She was tired of getting the same gifts, and me getting gifts on her birthday. She snapped a few days after Christmas when I asked her if she wanted to play together with our new Barbies. She got super mad, and yelled at me for a good five minutes about what to this day I am not sure. At 7 I could not understand why she was so mad. At the end of her tirade, she threw the offending Barbie in the trash yelling that if I had one she didn’t want it.  She then retreated crying to her room. I was stunned staring at the brand new doll in the trash. I knew she wanted that doll just as much as I did, and so in my child like logic, I plucked it out of the trash, wiped it off, and walked into the living room, where I left it on the coffee table. I retreated across the porch, back into my own house, and quietly played with Ariel in my living room by myself.            

            It was two full years before grandpa completely stopped giving us the same thing. But after that Christmas I never received a gift on her birthday from my grandpa again. I suspects Laurens mom heard it all, and understood her daughters hurt, and sent her husband to speak with my grandfather about the matter of us both receiving gifts on her birthday. Effectively stopping the practice.  I don’t think he meant to hurt or upset Lauren. He loved all of us kids, and wouldn’t do anything to purposely upset us.

            

Running in the family

Running in the Family's narrative style is different from both The Liars' Club and Fathers, Sons, and Brothers.  The book begins with a dream. The author tells us about the dream, which is chaotic and leaves him wanting to go to his native country Sri Lanka. THe writing style is kind of confusing. He goes from past to present without much care for the in between. Its is beautifully written no matter how confusing it may be. It makes you think rather than giving you everything. It's almost like a poem in that it must be deciphered. The first line is rather poetic, "What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto." (21) He could have been much more blunt, or straight forward. Instead he chooses words that give it that poetic feel. Maybe he wants to convey the feeling of searching for the meaning, or for answers, which seems to be what he is doing. He's searching for the truth of his family's past. 

The author gives you history of not only his family, but of his country. For example, on page 48, he explains 

"In India only the aristocracy gambled; in Ceylon the bankers and lime-burners and fishmongers and the leisured class would spend their afternoon shoulder to shoulder, betting compulsively. The rulers of the country genuinely believed that betting eliminated strikes; men had to work in order to gamble."

 This is an interesting fact about his country. All of the little facts he gives us about the country tend to lead into stories of his family. The gambling leads to stories of horse races, and his grandmother betting on her own horse every time but once, of course that being the only time he won. And how it was because of a telegram that was mistyped. 

900 words on FSB

Bret Lott spends much of Fathers, Sons, and Brothers: The Men in My Family going from stories of his childhood, and images of his brothers and father, to images of his sons and himself. He begins with an image comparison of his garage to his father’s garage (when they had one). He continues throughout the book, going from past to more recent/present images, comparing, both directly and indirectly. He is using the stories of his childhood to relay his fears for his own sons, their relationship, and their lives. 

You first really begin to see this in the essay Brothers. In this essay, Lott begins with a story of he and his older brother at their grandparent’s pool. His brother pinches him, and Brett cries. Lott then speaks of a picture of he and his brother six months after his wedding, they are smiling and happy. He says "That pinch was entry into our childhood; my arm around him, our smiling, is proof of us two surfacing, alive but not unscathed." (32) Lott and his brother are not close, as he shows with the story of showing Zeb the picture of him and his brother. That fighting between Lott and his brother, even before he can truly remember, is a representation of their childhood and teenage relationship. His stories of his sons fighting, Zeb accidentally hitting Jacob, Zeb's hand caught in the van door, represents the similarities between the two generations relationships.

He fears his son’s relationship will end up like the one he and his brother have. You can see this when he's ending the scene where he's showing Zeb the picture, he writes "But I was thinking of my question: Who's the other guy? and the truth of his answer: I don't know." (30).  He's almost lamenting the distance between his brother and himself. He makes mention of the distance between them throughout the book in several ways; the many times Brad runs away, the distance between them as adults (physical and mental), and times like when Brad watches Lynn beat him up. 

In the essay "Allegiance", Lott tells us how he was blindly allegiant to his brother as a child. He uses the story of the first time his brother Brad runs away to show this. Brad tells him where he's going before he leaves, but makes Bret swear to not tell. Brett swears and never once tells where Brad went. He fears his sons will be the same way, and we see this fear when later in "Allegiance", he writes ""Jake, don't tell dad," Zeb whispered, and it seemed Swear to god you won't tell ought to be the next words I would hear." (163). This scene of him mentally connecting his sons to his childhood clarifies his fear of them ending up like he and his brothers. He rushes into the room after hearing Zeb say that, and it turns out it was nothing major, and he was over-reacting.         

In the essay "Allegiance", Lott tells us how he was blindly allegiant to his brother as a child. He uses the story of the first time his brother Brad runs away to show this. Brad tells him where he's going before he leaves, but makes Bret swear to not tell. Brett swears and never once tells where Brad went. He fears his sons will be the same way, and we see this fear when later in "Allegiance", he writes ""Jake, don't tell dad," Zeb whispered, and it seemed Swear to god you won't tell ought to be the next words I would hear." (163). This scene of him mentally connecting his sons to his childhood clarifies his fear of them ending up like he and his brothers. He rushes into the room after hearing Zeb say that, and it turns out it was nothing major, and he was over-reacting. He is so afraid his sons will be like he and his brother he even says later:

"I realize now, with Jacob's sleepwalking to his brother's room, with that small sentence banged into a manual typewriter, with his measuring his entire world against only his brother, Jacob is me, just trying to make my way in the wake, for better or worse, of big brother Brad." (160).

No one is just like their parents, and sure Jacob may be like Lott was at his age, in that he looks up to his older brother, but what little sibling doesn't look up to their older sibling? Lott seems blind at some points to that simple fact, this passage is one of them. 

In some places Lott sees that his sons are not exactly like he and his brothers, like when he talks about hurricane Hugo and how Zeb and Jake each handle it. Zeb is not obvious about it bothering him, nor does he show his parents his book about the disaster until it is finished, and then he never mentions it again. Jake however, takes a full year to get over it, by drawing picture after picture of black cyclones.(117-137) He and his brothers never went through anything like that, so there is nothing to compare those experiences with in his childhood. By showing us this difference its like he's trying to comfort himself with the knowledge that this event makes his sons different from himself and his brothers.  

Lott shows us his fears by comparing his childhood with his brothers to his children's childhoods so far. He does not want his kids to have the same relationship he and his brothers have. At times this fear is so strong he over reacts. At others he sees that his kids are not the same as he and his brothers. 

         

Fathers, Sons, and Brothers.

Brett Lott spends much of Fathers, Sons, and Brothers: The Men in My Family going from stories of his childhood, and images of his brothers and father, to images of his sons and himself. He begins with an image comparison of his garage to his fathers garage (when they had one). He continues throughout the book, going from past to more recent/present images. He is using the stories of his childhood to rely his fears for his own sons, their relationship, and their lives. 

You first really begin to see this in the essay Brothers. In this essay Lott begins with a story of he and his older brother at their grandparents pool. His brother pinches him, and Brett cries. Lott then speaks of a picture of he and his brother six months after his wedding, they are smiling and happy. He says "That pinch was entry into our childhood; my arm around him, our smiling, is proof of us two surfacing, alive but not unscathed." (32) Lott and his brother are not close, as he shows with the story of showing Zeb the picture of him and his brother. That fighting between Lott and his brother, even before he can truly remember, is a representation of their childhood and teenage relationship. His stories of his sons fighting, Zeb accidently hitting Jacob. Zeb's hand caught in the van door, represents the similarities between the two generations relationships. 

He fears his sons relationship will end up like the one he and his brother have. You can see this when he's ending the scene where he's showing Zeb the picture, he writes "But I was thinking of my question: Who's the other guy? and the truth of his answer: I don't know." (30).  He's almost lamenting the distance between his brother and himself. He makes mention of the distance between them through out the book, in several ways, the many times Brad runs away, the distance between them as adults, (physical and mental) and times like when Brad watches Lynn beat him up.