It was the hottest summer that the south had seen in quiet a long time. I remember the weather was so hot that we had major droughts that were so severe that the government had laws restricting the times that you could use water outdoors; most of the time we just could not even use water outdoors whatsoever. Most of the time when it gets hot you can go swimming or go to water parks, but the weather was so hot that the pools were like warm public baths and most of the water parks were shut down due to the major drought.

I had been living in the same little town in Michigan ever since I was just a few years old. I was born in Flint, Michigan and lived there until the age of two, that’s when we moved to Davison, Michigan, population, hardly any. Davison was a very small town; we had one middle school and one high school, the people that you went to elementary with were the same people that were in your middle school and the same people that you graduated with. Due to this fact the bonds that you made with your friends were for the most part a lifetime friendship. The community was very close knit; everyone went to all the football games and parades. Parades were a very big thing in Davison. We had on average about five parades a year. We had a parade for the homecoming football game for the high school, then another parade for Fourth of July, a Thanksgiving Day parade, another parade for Halloween, and finally a Christmas parade. Each one of the parades would last a few hours and tons of people were in the parades. I really did not want to move away from Michigan, but the fact of it was we just had to. The economy in Michigan was getting really bad. We had our house up for sale for quite a while; finally we had to foreclose on our house. I was pretty young when we finally moved here and I did not really understand how hard it was for my parents to do that; now that I am older I really understand how hard it truly was for my parents to do.

In Michigan one of the things we really liked to do was make fun of stupid southern people, as we thought of them. We thought of most if not all southerners as dumb redneck people who did not speak real English. This was a real struggle for me to get over when I first moved down here. Everyone that I saw down here I saw as the stereotypical dumb redneck person that I had grown up knowing them as. It didn’t matter what you told me I really just didn’t like you no matter what because you were living in the south. I still talked to most of my in Michigan; however, I didn’t have a whole lot of really good friends. The saying out of sight out of mind really set in when I moved here because once I was gone a lot of my friends in Michigan just kind of forgot about me. I really tried not to make friends when I moved down here because of what happened with a lot of my friends in Michigan. I figured that even if I did make friends we wouldn’t be friends for very long because we would be split up between the many different high schools and then forget about each other.

This all changed, however, when I met my now best friend Brandon Sponseller. Oddly enough my very first thought about this him was “Wow, this kid is a jerk”. Whenever anyone said something that he thought wasn’t correct he just had to correct them. He was also a smart ass who thought he knew everything. My thoughts changed, however, when he and two of his friends were hanging out at the pool in the neighborhood that I lived in. I was up at the pool with my mom and little brother. I was showing my brother how to do flips into the pool. Brandon and the two kids he was with started doing flips as well. We started a kind of friendly competition that turned into a cannonball contest. This was the start of a very good friendship.

Brandon has since moved back to Ohio where he is originally from. He used to lived with his mom down here but he likes the north much more than down here so he decided to move back to Ohio with his dad. We still talk all the time and he comes to visit once in a while and when he does we always make sure to make time to hang out together at least a few times. It is crazy to think that the kid who is now my best friend I despised at one point. I guess it just goes to show you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

Ballad

Ballad of the Liar

We used to be good friends

Until you made one wrong move,

Now there will be no amends

Cause you have nothing else to prove.

I tried to be the nice guy

But you blew me off,

Now you’re nothing but lies

Cause for you it’s like a cough.

You say it’s something that I’ve done

When really it’s all your fault,

This battle has not been won

Cause I will not win by default.

You say I stole your boyfriend

But really you let him go,

Now let me lend a hand

And tell you something that you know.

He told me he doesn’t want you

So how about you back off,

You really don’t have a clue

Of what I’m capable of.

Now I spend my days happy

Cause I have what makes me feel good,

You go around looking crappy

Cause you did all that you could.

Now I have your ex boyfriend

And we are happy as can be,

And for you I recommend

trying to be happy like me.

Analytical Writing- BY:Joey Jackson

ANALYTICAL – Comparing and contrasting differences between the movie Psycho, and the book And Then There Were None

Psycho is a reference to someone that is psychopathic and tending to have characteristics of insanity and acting crazy. In the movie Psycho, we observed the psychopathic nature of Norman Bates. He looks like this ordinary guy that runs a small motel complex called The Bates Motel, which is home to him and his mother who he cares for and looks after very much. So we first see hints of his psychopathic nature when a tiresome lady who is weary from the guilt of stealing money looks for a place to spend the night and rest. So she decides to stay at the motel, and checks in with Norman to pay for her stay for the night, and we see that Norman has a strange and peculiar liking for this girl. We also see that after peeping on the girl, he gets a certain arousal and later while she is still showering, she is killed by an attacker that appears to be Normans mother. So after this incident, Norman talks to himself in an angry fashion about how his mother shouldn’t have killed her. He also has no problem cleaning up the bloody mess left by his “mother” and discarding of her body in a swamp. So we see the one of many telltale signs that Norman is indeed psychotic.

 And to sum up the movie a bit faster, we discover that Norman was indeed the killer. He dressed up in his dead mothers cloths, who we find to have been dead for many years from Norman killing her in an outrageous burst of anger for seeing his mom sleeping with another man, and showing her affection to someone other than her son. So because of this horrific event that even Norman couldn’t handle, he took on the personality of the momma’s boy that we clearly see in the beginning of the movie and his mother whom he killed in his earlier years. So as soon as the audience/reader learns of these events that have unfolded throughout the story, we can most defiantly make the conclusion that Norman Bates is psychotic along with another character from another story called And Then There Were None.

Justice wargrave is a very similar character in a story called And Then There Were None. He is also very much as psychotic as Norman because his story is about killing 10 people in a very precise series of events that were very well strategically planned way ahead then when this all happened. These people were no ordinary people either; they had some point in their lives committed a crime, and when put to trial they were found innocent. So the whole point of the story was that Justice Wargrave was going to take “justice” into his own hands because of the flaws in our legal system that allowed these guilty people to get away with their intolerable acts without any consequences. The psychotic thing though is that he liked doing this, he wanted to plan this very strategically and leave his legacy of the perfect murder and for his work to be studied and solved if even possible.

The two characters are very much alike, but most defiantly different in motive. The two characters were alike because they were both absolute psychopath’s. Justice Wargave enjoyed killing even when he was a boy, as did Norman bates or at least it was acceptable to him. I think though there were a lot more dissimilarity between the two. Norman Bates seemed to be more of a case of a mental breakdown from seeing his mom intimate with someone in bed. The event horrified him in a way that made him snap by killing both his mother and her lover. Because he himself didn’t realize he was capable of performing this, he took on another personality besides his own which was that of his mother in a strange and deranged way. He dressed like his mother by wearing her cloths and wig, while also preserving her corpse, which is why some of the characters in the story thought the killer was his mother and that something was going on that was too fishy between both him and his mom. So in his case I believe he was brought into psychopathy because he mentally couldn’t handle something and was pushed to a limit that broke him, while Justice Wargrave is a textbook psycho.

Justice Wargrave is a textbook psycho because he was ok in everything he did, and was completely dedicated to what he did. To him it seemed as something that was also a belief that should have been studied. Even though the book refers to him having these impulses at a young age, it looks like it was just something he believed in and that wasn’t out of the ordinary. I understand completely why he did everything he did, the only thing that makes him sane or not is the standards to which he solved his problem and how we would/should have. This is also true of all psychos, the thing that divides them from being sane or not to our standards is the manner in which they do, say, and believes in something.

Five Years and... Over

It was a normal Monday morning; everyone was asleep and tired at school, even more because it was the first Monday of school. Now, I am staring at flashing blue and red lights. Nobody was being arrested, no one going to jail, only one would be leaving in an ambulance. But before I get into all that, I need to go to the beginning.

            It was my first day of my seventh grade year; I was the new kid from Florida. Everyone avoided me in the typical new kid fashion except for one, Justin Hartsell. He walked right up to me and asked if I did any kind of skateboarding. I had no coordination on a skateboard, but I was optimistic. I told him no, but I have one I can learn on. The friendship began. We only had one class together both years I was in that school, but it did not matter. We did nothing in either class except sit back relax and complain about how we never wanted to go another day of school in our lives.

The next year, in eighth grade, we finally had our day of skate. Little did I know he was taking me to a full pledged skate park to teach me how to skate in front of every skateboarder that was there. When we arrived, the lot was full, when we walked in, the park was packed. I did not know what to do. He got the basics down with me, riding, stopping, and falling. The next four years of school could have taken longer, I would not have cared. Throughout the years I did nothing but go over to Justin’s house hangout, skate, eat, and fall asleep. I was consistently at Justin’s house. It got to the point I was over there so much that I just started calling his parents mom and dad. It was the same for him at my house. The time finally came to where I needed to skate with his friends that were as good as, or better than him.

            We arrived in Oakboro, where Justin’s friends lived. They seemed a little weary about me at first. The feeling of not belonging started to kick back in, but Justin talked to them. After a few quick skate sessions his friends started calling me my nick name, Grady.  The crew started to grow from just a crew, to more of a family. If I were to get a phone call from anyone during the days of summer vacation I would have to say I was skating with my family. It went from just having some skate sessions to skateboarding all day, having dinner with the family, and then passing out in the living after watching a skate video. That summer was the best summer I have ever had.

            Everything changed when I met the love of my life, Brittany Guidera. We met at a football game I was at. I kept her warm at that game I have been keeping her warm ever since. I frequently visited Brittany every day which meant, I wasn’t at Justin’s. the visits got less frequent with Justin. There would be a few time where I would blow off my girlfriend to hang out with Justin. We would end up in Oakboro skateboarding until two o’clock in the morning. The rides home were the best. The volume all the way up in the truck, windows open and not caring about people sleeping, we would speed through the night to my house because that’s where Justin’s parents thought he was. Then the day came to celebrate my ten months with Brittany. I invited Justin and his girlfriend, but he had other plans.

            Now I am staring at blue lights through my windshield, no one was being arrested. but one person would not be returning to his family at the end of the day. Brittany’s and my own ten month anniversary had ended tragically. My best friend that was supposed to be with me that night on a double date had gone home and played a game; a game designed to kill; the choking game.
     I never did get to see Justin again except for in his coffin, laying there lifeless. I wish I could blow off Brittany one last time to skate with him again.

Ballad

How much is needed to destroy

This dilemma that tortures me

At night? Does not give me joy

Nor does it give me glee.

I enclose myself and drain

My dreams, why do I need them?

They only cause me pain,

If only I was just a stem.

If I knew myself I would as well

Turn my head and feel lament

They say that love swells

And I feel torment.

I never understood how

To prevent that feeling

That breaks my vow

When you’re not here.

And so together age,

But I couldn’t make you happy

 And so I turn the page

And leave unhappy.

Narrative Writing

                                                Narrative Writing

The time that I was most terrified was when I got into my first car accident.  It all started when my sister and I took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple things.  My sister went to a store and I was very tired so I stayed in the car and took a nap.  It must have been an hour later as I woke up from my sister tapping on the window to unlock the car door to let her in.  So I looked for my keys and started the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot.  On the way (which was about five minutes down the road from my house), we talked about things just to make the time fly faster.  It seemed like the longest time before we finally reached our turn to go down the road that we lived on we ran into a bit of a problem.  The big problem was that it was rush hour and a lot of cars were in the lane I was trying to cross over into.  So I took my time and tried not to panic and waited for my turn to get ready to make the cross to the next road.  Then all a sudden a car that was in front of me in the opposite direction was making a turn also as I was.  So me being the new driver that I was I looked both ways once before crossing and went for the turn.  As I went across the street I noticed a speeding Chevy truck heading in my direction very quickly.  I panicked and my first thought was to stop but then in realized that I was too far out in the road to stop, so I pushed the gas pedal and tried to beat the car across the road.  As I approached the end of the road, just as I was about the make it to the other side the truck hits the side of my car that my sisters on at about 70 miles per hour and pushes us twenty feet backwards.  As the impact happened the air bags deployed and hit me in the face and rattled me for a couple seconds.  As I came back to my senses I felt a sharp pain in my elbow and I looked at my sister and she was in extreme pain also.  Then the people who were around the accident, came closer to check to see if were were both ok and called 911.  After about ten minutes the paramedics came and checked my arm and took me out of mar car and out me on a stretcher.  As they rolled me into the ambulance I had a good look at my first car and saw my sister getting cut out if the car with the jaws of life.  I waited for a moment or two for my sister to enter the ambulance with me, hoping that she wasn’t hurt too badly.  Finally they rolled her in there and I was a little relieved.  As we were on our way to the hospital I was praying that nothing would happen to my sister, that if anything bad would happen that it would happen to me because it was my fault. The paramedics found my phone on the floor of my car and contacted my parents to meet them at the hospital.  As we arrived to the hospital they came to get my sister in intensive care first because she was hurt worse than I was. It must have been ten minutes later until they came to get me out of the ambulance and they rolled me into a waiting room.  Soon nurses came in to ask me if I was ok and if anything hurt.  I told them that my arm hurt and they got me x-rayed and sent me back to the waiting room.  Then the doctor came in and told me that first off my sister was ok that it wasn’t as serious as they thought.  They told my parents and me that she had a collapsed lung and she would have to have surgery and stay in the hospital for a few days.   They also told me that my arm was not broken it was just bruised very badly.  Both were very good news to us.  An hour or so passed and they released me from the hospital as my sister was going into surgery.  I didn’t sleep very well that night because the wreck kept flashing through my head over and over all night.  My mom stayed with my sister the whole time she was in there and after a few days they released her from the hospital.  It took her a while but she finally got back to normal.  To this day I still miss my first car and I will never forget the most terrifying moment in my life because it will always be in the back of my mind that I almost lost my sister due to an accident that could have been easily avoided if I would have just been more cautious.

Ballad of the war

Upon the sister ship where we

In hopes to capture submarines

While we were out to sea

Even though we were in our teens

Sailing among the rough ocean

We captured the German submarine

We hoped that we would get a promotion

Good thing our prisoners weren’t mean

They did not act how we expected

They actually soon became our friends

We didn’t know we would be respected

Our feelings towards Germans were at mends

We went and took them ice cream

Every night before we went to bed

It seem to be a like a dream

That none of them wanted us dead

We often went down and played cards

To get to know the prisoners we had

During this time we didn’t have to be guards

This made all of us officers very glad

Only one German tired to escape

Sadly we had to end his life

Since he did not want to stay in shape

Now he won’t be able to see his wife

The Germans told us why they were in war

It was different from what we heard

Protection is what they said war was for

The true reason was so blurred

When we told them the truth
They then all began to scream

They have been lied to since youth

To them it was a horrible dream