Міністерство освіти і науки України
Сумський державний університет
FAMILY IS THE BIGGESТ TREASURE
Збірник англомовних художніх текстів
та лексико-граматичних завдань до них
для студентів 3-5-х курсів усіх спеціальностей
денної форми навчання
Суми
Видавництво СумДУ
2009
3
FAMILY IS THE BIGGESТ TREASURE
Збірник англомовних художніх текстів та лексико-граматичних
завдань до них для студентів 3-5-х курсів усіх спеціальностей
/ Укладач а.М.Дядечко.– Суми: Вид-во СумДУ, 2009. – 46 с.
Кафедра іноземних мов
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PART 1
SELECTION ONE
BEFORE READING
“The First Day of School”is a short story by William Saroyan. William Saroyan
(1908-1981) was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and plays, many based
on his experience growing up as the son of Armenian immigrants in California.
Saroyan is known for his exuberant style and his insight into human nature.
1 Think and say.
1 Is the first day of school easy for children?
2 How do they feel on that day?
2 Read the story.
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
by William Saroyan
He was a little boy named Jim, the first and only child of Dr Louis
Davy, 717 Mattei Building, and it was his first day at school. His father
was French, a small heavy-set man of forty whose boyhood had been
full of poverty and unhappiness and ambition. His mother was dead:
she died when Jim was born, and the only woman he knew intimately
was Amy, the Swedish housekeeper.
It was Amy who dressed him in his Sunday clothes, and took him to
school. Jim liked Amy, but he didn’t like her taking him to school. He
told her so. All the way to school he told her so.
I don’t like you, he said. I don’t like you any more.
I like you, the housekeeper said.
He had taken walks with Amy before, once all the way to the Court
House Park for the Sunday afternoon band concert, but this walk to
school was different.
What for? he said.
Everybody must go to school, the housekeeper said.
Did you go to school? he said.
No, said Amy.
Then why do I have to go? he said.
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You will like it, said the housekeeper.
He walked on with her in silence, holding her hand.
I don’t like you, he said. I don’t like you any more.
I like you, said Amy.
Then why are you taking me to school? he asked again.
Why?
The housekeeper knew how frightened a little boy could be about going
to school.
You will like it, she said. I think you will sing songs and play
games.
I don’t want to, he said.
I will come and get you every afternoon, she said.
I don’t like you, he told her again.
She felt very unhappy about the little boy going to school, but she
knew that he would have to go. The school building was very ugly to
her and the boy. She didn’t like the way it made her feel, and going up
the steps with him she wished he didn’t have to go to school. The halls
and rooms scared her, and him, and the smell of the place too. And he
didn’t like Mr Barber, the principal. Amy despised Mr Barber.
What’s the name of your son? Mr Barber said.
This is Dr Louis Davy’s son, said Amy. His name is Jim. I am Dr
Davy’s housekeeper.
James? said Mr Barber.
Not James, said Amy, just Jim.
All right, said Mr Barber. Any middle name?
No,said Amy. He is too small for a middle name. Just Jim Davy.
All right, said Mr Barber. We’ll try him out in the first grade. If he
doesn’t get along all right we’ll try him out in the kindergarten.
Dr Davy said to start him in the first grade, said Amy. Not
kindergarten.
All right, said Mr Barber.
The housekeeper knew how frightened the little boy was, sitting on the
chair, and she tried to let him know how much she loved him and how
sorry she was about everything. She wanted to say something fine to
him about everything, but she couldn’t say anything, and she was very
proud of the nice way he got down from the chair and stood beside Mr
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Barber, waiting to go with him to a classroom On the way home she
was so proud of him she began to cry.
Miss Binney, the teacher of the first grade, was an old lady who was all
dried out. The room was full of little boys and girls. School smelled
strange and sad. He sat at a desk and listened carefully. He heard some
of the names: Charles, Ernest, Alvin, Norman, Betty, Hannah, Juliet,
Viola, Polly. He listened carefully and heard Miss Binney say, Hannah
Winter, what are you chewing? And he saw Hannah Winter blush. He
liked Hannah Winter right from the beginning.
Gum, said Hannah.
Put it in the waste-basket, said Miss Binney.
He saw the little girl walk to the front of the class, take the gum from
her mouth, and drop it into the waste-basket. And he heard Miss
Binney say, Ernest Gaskin, what are you chewing?
Gum, said Ernest.
And he liked Ernest Gaskin too. They met in the schoolyard and Ernest
taught him a few jokes.
Amy was in the hall when school ended. She was sullen and angry at
everybody until she saw the little boy. She was amazed that he wasn’t
changed, that he wasn’t hurt, or perhaps utterly unalive, murdered. The
school and everything about it frightened her very much. She took his
hand and walked out of the building with him, feeling angry and proud.
Jim said, What comes after twenty-nine?
Thirty, said Amy.
Your face is dirty, he said.
His father was very quiet at the supper table.
What comes after twenty-nine? The boy said.
Thirty, said his father.
Your face is dirty, he said.
In the morning he asked his father for a nickel.
What do you want a nickel for? his father said.
Gum, he said.
His father gave him a nickel and on the way to school he stopped at
Mrs Riley’s store and bought a package of Spearmint.
Do you want a piece? he asked Amy.
Do you want to give me a piece? the housekeeper said.
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Jim thought about for a moment, and then said, Yes.
Do you like me? said the housekeeper.
I like you, said Jim. Do you like me?
Yes, said the housekeeper. Do you like school?
Jim didn’t know for sure, bur he knew he liked the part about gum. And
Hannah Winter. And Ernest Gaskin.
I don’t know, he said.
Do you sing? asked the housekeeper.
No, we don’t sing, he said.
Do you play games? she said.
Not in the school, he said. In the yard we do.
He liked the part about gum very much.
Miss Binney said, Jim Davy, what are you chewing?
Ha ha ha, he thought. Gum, he said.
He walked to the waste-basket and back to his seat, and Hannah Winter
saw him, and Ernest Gaskin too. That was the best part of school. It
began to grow too.
Ernest Gaskin, he shouted in the schoolyard, what are you
chewing?
Raw elephant meat, said Ernest Gaskin. Jim Davy, what are you
chewing?
Jim tried to think of something very funny to be chewing, but he
couldn’t. Gum, he said, and Ernest Gaskin laughed louder than Jim
laughed when Ernest Gaskin said raw elephant meat. It was funny no
matter what you said. Going back to the classroom Jim saw Hannah
Winter in the hall.
Hannah Winter, he said, what in the world are you chewing?
The little girl was startled. She wanted to say something nice that
would honestly show how nice she felt about having Jim say her name
and ask her the funny question, making fun of school, but she couldn’t
think of anything that nice to say because they were almost in the room
and there wasn’t time enough.
Tutti-frutti, she said with desperate haste.
It seemed to Jim he had never before heard such a glorious word, and
he kept repeating the word to himself all day.
Amy Larson, he said, what, are, you, chewing?
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He told his father all about it at the supper table. He said, once there
was a hill. On the hill there was a mill. Under the mill there was a walk.
Under the walk there was the key. What is it?
I don’t know, his father said. What is it?
Milwaukee, said the boy.
The housekeeper was delighted.
Mill. Walk. Key, Jim said. Tutti-frutti.
What’s that? said his father.
Gum, he said. The kind Hannah Winter chews.
Who’s Hannah Winter? said the father.
She’s in my room, he said.
Oh, said his father.
After supper he sat on the floor with the small red and blue and yellow
top that hummed while it spinned. It was all right, he guessed. It was
still very sad, but the gum part of it was very funny and the Hannah
Winter part very nice. Raw elephant meat, he thought with great inward
delight. Raw elephant meat, he said to his father who was reading the
evening paper. His father folded the paper and sat on the floor beside
him. The housekeeper saw them together on the floor and for some
reason tears came to her eyes.
COMPREHENSION CHECK
1 What do you learn about Jim’s family?
2 How does Jim feel about starting school? Why?
3 How does Amy feel about Jim’s starting school? Why?
4 What did Jim learn from the other children in school?
5 What happens at the end of the story? What is Amy’s reaction?
SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS
1 Did Dr. Davy pay much attention to his son?
2 What characters in the story change? In what way do they change?
3 Do you remember your first day of school?
4 Who brought you to school on the 1st of September?
5 Do you have photos shot on that day? What and who can be seen in
them?
6 How did you feel among new surroundings?
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7 With whom did you share your impressions about your starting
school?
8 How did your family feel about your starting school?
CONTENT VOCABULARY
1 Match the words on the left with those close in meaning enlisted on
the right.
intimatejoy
inwardmagnificent
delightclose and familiar
utterlyto frighten
gloriousto go round
to spincompletely
to scareinner
2 Complete the statements below with the words from the list. Change
the form of verbs if the grammar requires it.
amazed
delighted
die
frightened
funny
get along
on the way
proud
try out
way
wish
1 Amy is the housekeeper who takes care of Jim because his mother
__________ when he was born. Amy never went to school and seemed
more ___________ of the school than five-year-old Jim.
2 Amy didn’t like the _________ the school made her feel, and she
__________ that Jim didn’t have to go to school at all.
3 She didn’t like the principal either, but like a mother she was
_________ that Jim behaved well in his office.
4 Jim was only five, but his father wanted him in first grade, so the
principal agreed to _______ him _______ in first grade. If he ________
okay, he could stay there. If not, he would go into kindergarten.
5 It didn’t take Jim long to begin to make friends and learn some jokes
from them. Soon everything the children did or said seemed
_________, especially chewing raw elephant meat.
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6 Jim stopped at Mrs.Riley’s store ___________ to school and bought a
package of spearmint gum because Miss Binney didn’t allow the
children to chew gum in class.
7 When Jim came out of school, Amy was __________ to see he was
OK because she was sure something bad had happened to him.
8 She felt better that night and was __________ with the jokes that Jim
told at the supper table.
WRITING
Ask your parents about the way they felt about your first day of
school. Write a short paragraph on it.
SELECTION TWO
BEFORE READING.
This selection is an article about a real family. It originally appeared in Reader’s
Digest.
1 Think and say:
1 At what stage in life do children most appreciate their parents? Why?
2 Read the title and the preview of the article.What kind of influence on
the author did his mother have?
2 Read the article by N.Michelotti.
MOTHER WAS REALLY SOMETHING
She challenged us to succeed – and then showed us the way.
by Joseph N.Michelotti, M.D.
In June 1976, I graduated from Northwestern University Medical
School in Chicago. When my name was called, I walked quickly across
the stage and reached for my diploma. But before the medical school
dean handed me the certificate, he asked my parents, Anna and Carlo
Michelotti, to stand. Surprised, they rose from their seats in the
audience. They looked at each other and seemed puzzled. The dean told
the crowd that my parents, an immigrant Italian couple from a farm
outside Chicago, had managed to send their six children to top colleges
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and graduate schools. (Three of us would become doctors, two were
already lawyers and one was a physicist.) “It’s remarkable,” the dean
said. Everyone cheered loudly.
Mamma’s face was radiant with pride. I knew that everything we
had achieved or would achieve was because of my parents. When we
were young children, my mother, especially, was our mentor. Not until
I became an adult did I realize how special she was.
DELIGHT IN DEVOTION. My mother was born in a small town
in northern Italy. She was three when her parents immigrated to this
country in 1926. They lived on Chicago’s South Side, where my
grandfather worked making ice cream. Mama thrived in the hectic
urban environment. At 16, she graduated first in her high-school class,
went on to secretarial school, and finally worked as an executive
secretary for a railroad company. She was beautiful too. When a local
photographer used her pictures in his monthly window display, she was
flattered. Her favorite portrait showed her sitting by Lake Michigan,
her hair windblown, her gaze reaching toward the horizon. My mother
always used to say that when you died, God gave you back your “best
self.” She’d show us that picture and say, ”This is what I’m going to
look like in heaven.”
My parents were married in 1944. Dad was a quiet and intelligent
man who was 17 when he left Italy. Soon after, a hit-and-run accident
left him with a permanent limp. Dad worked hard selling candy to
Chicago office workers on their break. He had little formal schooling.
His English was self-taught. Yet he eventually built a small, successful
wholesale candy business.
Dad was generous, handsome and deeply religious. Mama was
devoted to him. After she married, my mother quit her job and gave
herself to her family. In 1950, with three small children, Dad moved the
family to a farm 40 miles from Chicago. He worked the land and
commuted to the city to run his business. Mama said good-bye to her
parents and friends and traded her busy city neighborhood for a more
isolated life. But she never complained. By 1958, our modest white
farmhouse was filled with six children, and mother was delighted.
“THINK BIG.” My mother never studied books on parenting. Yet
she knew how to raise children. She heightened our self-esteem and
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helped us reach our potential. One fall day, I sat at the kitchen table
while Mama peeled potatoes. She spied Dad out the window of his
tractor and smiled. “Your father has accomplished so much,” she said
proudly. “He is really somebody.” My mother wanted each of us to be
somebody too. “Your challenge is to be everything you can. Mine is to
help,” she always said. She read to us every day and used homemade
flash cards to teach us phonics. She bolstered our confidence, praising
even our most ordinary accomplishments. When I was ten, I painted a
stack of wooden crates and nailed them together to make a wobbly
bookcase. “It’s wonderful!” Mama exclaimed. “Just what we need.”
She used it for many years. In the dining room are two paint-by-number
pictures that my sister Gloria and brother Leo did as kids. Several years
ago, Leo commented that the pictures were not very good and offered
to take them down. But mother wouldn’t hear of it. “they are there to
remind you how much you could accomplish even as children,” she
said.
From the very beginning, she urged us to think big. One day, after
visiting our grandparents on the South Side, she made Dad detour past
the Prudential Building construction site. Mama explained that when
finished, the 41-story building would be the Chicago’s tallest. “Maybe
someday one of you can design a building like that,” she said. Her
confidence in us was infectious. When my sister Carla was 12, she
announced she was going to be a lawyer. “you can do that,” Mama
said. “You can do anything you put your mind to”.
TOUR GUIDE.To Mama, education was a blueprint for success.
Four of us went to a nearby, one-room schoolhouse. My mother made
up for its shortcomings by getting us educational toys, talking to us
about history, politics and current events, and helping with homework.
The best part of getting a good report card was her unstinting praise.
When I was in third grade, she urged our teacher to organize a trip to
Chicago museums. My mother helped the teacher rent a bus and plan
the trip. She even served as tour guide, pointing out landmarks and
recounting local history. When it came time to think about college,
there was never a question that we’d all go. Inspired by our parents’
sacrifice, we studied hard to earn scholarships, and applied for grants
and financial aid. We also took jobs to earn money for school. Working
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in a grocery store, I learned the value of a dollar. “Work is blessing.”
Mama always reminded us.
She never asked for anything for herself. “You don’t have to buy
me a birthday present,” she said one time. “instead write me a letter
about yourself. Tell me about your life. Is there anything worrying you?
Are you happy?”
“YOU HONOR US ALL” My mother made family values and
pride tangible. One time when I was a high-school junior, our school
put on a production of The Music Man. My role was totally
insignificant. I played bass in the orchestra. “You don’t have to come
and see me,” I told Mama. “I am not doing anything important.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Of course we are coming, and we are coming
because you are in the program.” The whole family showed up. The
next year when I was elected president of my high school’s National
Honor Society, my mother pulled Michael and Maria, my younger
brother and sister, out of grade school and brought them to the
ceremony. Other students’ parents came to the event. But I was the
only one with a brother and sister there. “Everything you do reflects on
the family,” Mama explained. “If you succeed, you honor us all.” In the
same way, she crowded us all around the kitchen table for breakfast and
supper. She made sure we shared chores. She nurtured our religious
faith, which kept our family close. Every Sunday, we filled a pew at
church. At night, we knelt together in the living room and prayed. My
mother suggested games everyone could play and often joined us.
TIME FOR EVERYONE. Success was not just making money,
Mama always said. Success was doing something positive for others. In
1977, when Leo received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of
California at Irvine, my mother wrote him a long, warm letter. She
praised his years of hard work and, typically, reminded him to use his
education to help others. “To think, you have the knowledge to work
for the betterment of mankind!” she stressed.
My mother was the driving influence in my decision to become a
physician. “Do good’ she always said – “and be there for others”. I
recall a long difficult night when I was a resident at Northwestern
Memorial Hospital. I hadn’t slept much for days. Finally, one morning
at around four o’clock, I dropped into a restless slumber. An hour later,
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I awoke with a jolt. I had dreamed my father died. Confused and
exhausted, I called home in tears. “Everything is all right,” my mother
assured me. “ Don’t worry.” At six o’clock, the hospital security
buzzed my room. I had visitors. Stumbling into the elevator, I
wondered who had come to see me at that hour. There stood my
parents. They had gotten up and driven into the city in the predawn
darkness. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Mama said,
sleepy-eyed and anxious.
VIEW FROM ABOVE While my mother’s spirit remained
indomitable, her health turned poor. Early last year, she had major
surgery. Complications developed. Eight days later, on January 31,
1990, Mama died suddenly. She was 66. More than 200 people came to
her funeral. In his eulogy, Leo said, “ Mama poured her life out for us,
reserving nothing for herself, thinking of us always, of herself never.”
Sitting in the church, I could picture my mother in heaven, looking
young and beautiful just as she did in her favorite photograph. But
instead of gazing out over Lake Michigan, she would be looking down
at us, her six children. And she would be bursting with pride. But we
were the proud ones – proud of her and all she accomplished. More
than any of us, Mama was really somebody.
COMPREHENSION CHECK
1 Answer the questions:
1 Who is telling the story? What is the author by diploma?
2 Where did most of events take place?
3 What years are depicted in the story?
4 What are the important facts in the early lives of Anna and Carlo
Michelotti? What were their early successes?
5 What kind of person was each parent? What talents did each have?
6 What was family life like in the Michelotti family?
7 Did mother know how to raise children?
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2 Reread the article and list the lessons that mother tried to teach her
children and the things she thought were important.
3 Check your ability to remember:
1 How many children were there in the family?
2 What were their names?
3 What professions were popular among the Michelottis’ children?
4 Can you comment on the years below giving a list of events in the
Michelotti family?
1976 1926 1944 1950 –
1958 –
1977 1990
SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS
1 What fact or statement from the article impressed you most?
2 What do you think Anna Michelotti means by “work is a blessing”?
3 What lessons are there to be learned from the Michelotti family?
4 Why do you think Joseph Michelotti wrote this article?
5 What do you appreciate about your parents? What are your family
values?
6 What lessons have you learned from your parents? Can you give a
specific example of how they taught you the lesson?
7 What do “success” and “being somebody” mean to you?
CONTENT VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR FUNCTIONS
1 Find in the text synonyms to the following words:
to appear doctor to offer –
guard(n) to give –
look(n) unlimited –
instructor improvement surroundings –
confused –
to succeed in constantreal –
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2 Guess the words from the article by their definitions.
1 being or acting as a father and a mother
2 to travel regularly some distance, as from a suburb into a city and
back
3 praise in honor of a deceased person
4 a failure, defect
5 characterized by confused or hurried activity
6 inclined to one side and to the other when not properly balanced
(eulogy, shortcoming, wobbly, hectic, parenting, to commute)
3 Try to remember the following compound words in their original
context:
railroad windblown farmhouse grandparents blueprint scholarship
landmark shortcoming birthday schoolhouse wholesale
self-taught self-esteem good-bye hit-and-run one-room
high-school paint-by-number sleepy-eyed
4 Replace the verbs in italics with the ones close in meaning:
1 They seemed puzzled.
2 Not until I became an adult did I realize how special she was.
3 He built a small, successful wholesale candy business.
4 My mother quit her job.
5 Leo offered to take the pictures down.
6 My mother pulled Michael and Maria, my younger brother and
sister, out of grade school.
7 She crowded us all around the kitchen table for breakfast and supper.
8 Her health turned poor.
5 Derive adjectives from the nouns below:
infectionsecretary monthexecution religiontyperemarkanxiety woodlocality –
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6 Fill in the blanks with proper prepositions:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
She read _____ us every day.
Her confidence ____ us was infectious.
They had driven _____ the city ____ the predawn darkness.
Everything you do reflects ____ the family.
Leo received his Ph.D. ____ physics.
I walked quickly _____ the stage and reached ___ my diploma.
They rose ____ their seats.
The whole family showed ____.
___16, she graduated first in her high-school class, went on ____
secretarial school, and finally worked ____an executive secretary
____ a railroad company.
10 ____ 1958, our modest white farmhouse was filled _____ six
children.
11 Dad moved the family ____ a farm 40 miles _____ Chicago.
12 ___Mama, education was a blueprint ___ success.
13 She never asked ____ anything ____ herself.
14 She even served ___ a tour guide.
15 I learned the value ____ a dollar.
7 Complete the following statements with words from the list. Change
the form of verbs if the grammar or the sentence requires it:
achieve
mentor
reach
chores complain
praise proud
success
manage
raise
1 After getting married, Anna Michelotti traded big city life in Chicago
for a more isolated life in the country, but she never _____________.
2 She really knew how to ___________children and dedicated her life
to them.
3 She knew she should ______________ her children’s
accomplishments, big or small.
4 She gave her children __________ to do so they shared the work of
the family.
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5 Mama was a guide or ___________ for her children. She helped them
___________ their potential. She taught them that ______________in
life does not come from accumulating riches but from doing something
to other people.
6 Anna and Carlo Michelotti worked hard and _____________ to send
their six children to top colleges and graduate schools. They
were_________ of their children and all that they ______________.
8 Read the sentences below and say if the italicized words function as
nouns, verbs, or adjectives:
1 Parents usually sacrifice a lot for their children, but children don’t
always appreciate their parents’ sacrifices.
2 In the Michelotti family, every child did his own or her share of the
work. Mama taught her children to share the chores.
3 Joseph Michelotti wrote this article as an adult. It is written from the
point of view of an adult child.
4 Mama challenged her children to succeed. She said, ”Your challenge
is to be everything you can.”
5 Mama knew how to parent; she was a good parent.
6 Joseph Michelotti went to a top medical school. We do not know if he
graduated at the top of his class.
7 A photographer used Mama’s picture in a window display. After her
death, Joseph pictured his mother in heaven.
8 Carlo Michelotti had a limp. He limped because he had been hit by a
car.
9 When the children succeeded, they brought honor to the family.
Mama said, “ If you succeed, you honor us all.”
WRITING
Write a paragraph on
- the way your relationships with parents have changed with time.
- things that make you feel proud of your parents.
- achievements you have gained thanks to your parents.
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SELECTION THREE
BEFORE READING
“Excavating Rachael’s Room” is an essay selected from “Old Songs in a New
Café” by Robert James Waller. Robert James Waller (1939) is an American
writer also known for his work as a photographer and musician. Several of his
books have been on the New York Times bestseller list. Two of his novels have
been made into motion pictures. R.J.Waller received his Ph.D. in business in
1968. Later he taught and was dean of the business school
1 Think and say.
1 Do you live with your parents or at the students’ dormitory?
2 Would you like to stay on your own like most of the students in the
USA do?
3 Do young people need this sort of independence? What for?
4 Do you depend on your parents much?
5 Do your parents support you ? In what way?
6 If you live separately, do you miss your family?
7 Whom and what do you miss most?
8 Does your family miss you?
2 Read the essay by R.J.Waller
EXCAVATING RACHAEL’S ROOM
by Robert James Waller
Like some rumpled alien army awaiting marching orders, the brown
trash bags hunker down on the patio in a column of twos. A hard little
caravan are they, resting in sunlight and shadow and caring not for their
cargos, the sweepings of childhood and beyond.
With her eighteenth birthday near, Rachael has moved to Boston,
leaving her room and the cleaning of it to us.
After conducting a one-family attempt at turning United Parcel
Service into something resembling North American Van Lines, we
gather by the front door early on a Sunday morning.
Beside the suitcases are stacked six boxes, taped and tied. In my
innocence, I tap the topmost box and ask, “What are these?”
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“That’s the stuff I couldn’t get into my suitcases last night; you
guys can send it to me,” she replies, rummaging through her purse. Out
of habit, I begin a droning lecture on planning ahead, realize the futility
of it, and I am quiet.
She has a deep caring for the animals and purposely, we know,
avoids saying good-bye to them, particularly the small female cat
acquired during her stay at camp one summer, years ago.
The cat has shared her bed, has been her confident and has greeted
her in the afternoons when she returned from school. Good-bye would
be too much, would bring overpowering tears, would destroy the blithe
air of getting on with it she is trying hard to preserve.
We watch her walk across the apron of the Waterloo airport,
clutching her ticket, and she disappears into the funny little Air
Wisconsin plane.
Turning, just as she left the departure lounge, she grinned and
flashed the peace sign. I was all right until then, but with that last
insouciant gesture, so typical of her, the poignancy of the moment is
driven home and tears come.
We hurry outside and stand in hot sunlight to see the plane leave. I
note that we have never done this before, for anyone.
Clinging to the heavy fence wire along the airport boundary, I
watch the plane take off to the west and make a last allegoric circle
over Cedar Falls. East she travels and is gone, disappearing in the haze
of an Iowa summer.
Back home, beer in hand, we sit on the porch, listening to the
hickory nuts fall, recounting the failures and remembering the
triumphs.
For the 500th time in the last eighteen years, we describe to each
other the night of her birth, how she looked coming down the hall in the
Bloomington, Indiana, hospital on the gurney in her mother’s arms.
How we felt, how we feel, what we did and didn’t do.
We take a few days off, just to get used to the idea of there being
only two of us again. Then, tentatively, we push open the door to her
room.
The dogs peer into the darkness from around our legs and look up at
us. The room – well – undulates. It stands as a shrine to questionable
21
taste, a paean to the worst of American consumerism. The last few
echoes of Def Leppard and Twisted Sister are barely audible. Georgia
sighs.
I suggested flame throwers coupled with a front-end loader and
caution the cleaning crew, which now includes the two cats, about a
presence over in one of the corners. Faintly, I can hear it rustle and
snarl. It is, I propose, some furry guardian of teenage values, and
senses, correctly, that we are enemies.
Trash bags in hand, we start at the door and work inward, toughminded.
“My god, look at this stuff; let’s toss it all.”
The first few hours are easy. Half-empty shampoo bottles go into
the bags, along with three dozen hair curlers, four dozen dried-up ball
pens and uncountable pictures of bare-chested young men with
contorted faces clawing at strange-looking guitars.
Farther into the room salvage appears: the hammer that disappeared
years ago; about six bucks in change; 50 percent of the family’s towel
and drinking-glass stock; five sets of keys to the Toyota. More. Good
stuff. We work with a vengeance.
Moving down through the layers. Though, we begin to undergo a
transformation.
Slowly, we change from rough-and-rumble scavengers to gentle
archeologists. Perhaps it started when we reached the level of the dolls
and stuffed animals. Maybe it was when I found “The Man Who Never
Washed His Dishes,” a morality play in a dozen or so pages, with her
childhood scribblings in it.
In any case, tough-mindedness has turned to drippy sentimentality
by the time we find the tack and one shoe from Bill, her horse.
I had demanded that Bill be sold when he was left unridden after
the five years of an intense love affair with him were over. That was
hard on her, I know. I begin to understand just how hard when Georgia
discovers a bottle of horsefly repellent that she kept for her memories.
We hold up treasures and call to each other. “Look at this, do you
remember . . .?”
22
And there’s Barbie. And Barbie’s clothes. And Barbie’s camper in
which the young female cat was given grand tours of the house, even
though she would have preferred not to travel at all, thank you.
My ravings about the sexist glorification of middle-class values
personified by Barbie seem stupid and hollow in retrospect, as I
devilishly look at the cat and wonder if she still fits in the camper.
“Here kitty, kitty. . .” Ken is not in sight. Off working out on the
Nautilus equipment, I suppose. Or studying tax shelters.
Ah, the long-handled net with which Iowa nearly was cleared of
fireflies for a time. “I know they look pretty in the bottle, Sweetheart,
but they will die if you keep them there all night.”
Twister – The Game That Ties You Up in Knots. The ball glove.
She was pretty decent at first base. And the violin. Jim Welch’s school
orchestra was one of the best parts of her growing years.
She smiles to us from a homecoming picture, the night of her first
real date. Thousands of rocks and seashells. The little weaving loom on
which she fashioned pot holders for entire neighborhoods. My resolve
is completely gone as I rescue Snoopy’s pennant from the flapping jaws
of a trash bag and set it to one side for keeping.
We are down to small keepsakes and jewelry. Georgia takes over,
not trusting my eye for value, and sorts the precious from the junk,
while I shuffle through old algebra papers.
Night after night, for a year, I sat with her at the kitchen table,
failing to convince her of the beauty to be found in quadratic equations
and other abstractions. I goaded her with Waller’s Conjecture: “Life is
a word problem.” Blank stare.
Finally, trying to wave hope in the face of defeat, I paraphrased
Fran Lebowiz: “In the real world, there is no algebra.”
She nodded, smiling, and laughed when I admitted that not once, in
all my travels, had I ever calculated how long Smith would need to
overtake Brown if Brown left three hours before Smith on a slower
train. I told her I’d sit in the bar and wait for Smith’s faster train.
That confirmed what she had heretofore only suspected – algebra is
not needed for the abundant life, only fast trains and good whiskey.
And, she was right, of course.
The job is nearly finished. All that remains is a bit of archiving.
23
I have strange feelings, though. Have we sorted carefully enough?
Probably. Georgia is thorough about that kind of thing. Still, I walk to
the road again and look at the pile. The tailings of one quarter of a life
stacked up in three dozen bags. It seems like there ought to be more.
When I hear the garbage truck, I peer out of an upstairs window in
her room. The garbage guys have seen lives strung out along road
edges before and are not moved. The cruncher on the truck grinds hair
curlers and Twister and junk jewelry and broken stuffed animals – and
some small part of me.
She calls from Boston. A job. Clerking in a store, and she loves it.
We are pleased and proud of her. She’s under way.
The weeks go by. Letters. “I am learning to budget my money. I
hate it. I want to be rich.”
She starts her search for the Dream in a rooming house downtown
and finds a Portuguese boyfriend, Tommy, who drums in a rock band
and cooks Chinese for her. Ella Fitzgerald sings a free concert in the
park. The cop on the beat knows her, and the store is crowded with
returning college kids late in a Boston summer. Here in the woods, it’s
quieter now.
Her room has been turned into a den. A computer replaces curling
irons and other clutter on the desk. My pinstripes look cheerless in her
closet where pink fishnet tops and leather pants once hung.
Order has replaced life. I sit quietly there and hear the laughter, the
crying, the reverberation of a million phone calls. The angst of her
early-teen existential crisis lingers, drifting in a small cloud near the
high ceiling.
And you know what I miss? Coming home and hearing her say,
”Looking pretty good, Bob! Got your suspenders on?” She could make
a whirring sound just like the motor drive of a fine camera.
Those few moments of irreverent hassle every day are what I miss
most of all.
Regrets? A few. I wish I had walked in the woods more with her. I
wish I had gotten mad less and laughed longer. Maybe we could have
kept the horse another year.
Victories? A few. She loves the music and the animals. She
understands romance and knows how to live a romantic life. She also
24
has the rudimentary skills of a great blackjack dealer. I sent her off
with that instead of luggage.
She has her own agenda. She’s had it for years. It’s not my agenda,
not what I would choose, but then she has more courage than I do.
She’s out there on her own, cooking on a hot plate in a Boston rooming
house, pushing and shoving and working and discovering. My respect
for her escalates. She’s going to be all right.
And I know I’ll sit on the porch as autumn comes this year and
other years, in some old sweater with some old dreams, and wonder
where she goes and how she goes.
I hope she goes where there’s laughter and romance, and walks the
streets of Bombay and leans out of Paris windows to touch falling
January snow and swims in the seas off Bora Bora and makes love in
Bangkok in the Montien Hotel.
I hope she plays blackjack all night in the Barbary Coast and,
money ahead, watches the sun come up in Vegas. I hope she rides the
big planes out of Africa and Jakarta and feels what’s like to turn for
home just ahead of winter.
Go well, Rachael Elizabeth, my daughter. And, go knowing that
your ball glove hangs on the wall beside mine, that Snoopy’s pennant
flies bravely in the old airs of your room, that the violin is safe, and that
the little cat now sleeps with us at night but still sits on the porch railing
in the late afternoon and looks for you.
COMPREHENSION CHECK
1 Who is the narrator? Why did he write this essay?
2 What is the format of the essay?
3 Why is the essay entitled “Excavating Rachael’s Room”?
4 Are there many people involved in the story?
SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS
1 Did R.J.Waller write the essay rather for himself than for his
daughter?
2 What do you think about R.J.Waller as a father?
3 What do you think about him as a narrator?
25
4 Did you smile when reading the essay? Did the story itself or the way
it was told make you smile?
5 What can you say about the language and the style R.J.Waller offers
the readers?
6 Why does the narrator use so many details?
7 Reread the essay to find examples of inversion, one or two word
sentences and reiteration (repetition). What do they add up to the
story?
8 Can we say that R.J.Waller is a master to combine emotions and
sentimentality with humor and irony? Give the most vivid examples
of such combinations.
9 What does the author really mean when he says:
“… furry guardian of teenage values …”;
“… tough-mindedness has turned to drippy sentimentality …”;
“ The cruncher on the truck grinds …some small part of me.”;
“ I rescue Snoopy’s pennant from the jaws of a trash bag…”;
“ She starts her search for the Dream in a rooming house
downtown…” ?
10 What did father teach his daughter ?
11 Can you play blackjack? Who taught you to play it?
12 What passage of the essay impressed you most? Read and
explain.
13 What is the essay really about?
CONTENT VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR FUNCTIONS
1 Match the words on the left with those on the right in the way
they go in the text:
trash
archaeologists
morality
guardian
rudimentary
truck
quadratic
house
garbage
loom
weaving
values
stuffed
scribblings
childhood
equations
26
furry
teenage
gentle
rooming
skills
play
bag
animals
2 Below is the list of verbs used in the text. Use your body language
to illustrate the following verbal activities:
to push, to shove, to toss, to shuffle, to stack, to grind, to clutch,
to nod, to claw, to rummage, to escalate, to cling to peer, to stare.
Now make your classmates guess the verb(activity) you show.
3 Can you practice sound imitation of the verbs?
to rustle, to snarl, to sigh
4 Explain the meaning of the words below by means of synonyms
or descriptions. Use the dictionary if necessary.
allegoricrudimentary –
audiblehaze(n)blithefutilityquestionablein retrospect5 Guess the words from the essay through their definitions:
1 Goods carried in a ship, aircraft or other vehicle.
2 Song of thanksgiving, praise or triumph .
3 The saving of property from loss( by fire or other disaster); property
so saved.
4 A list of things to be done, business to be discussed; a set of
operations which form a procedure for solving a problem
5 A flat, padded table or stretcher with legs and wheels for transporting
patients or bodies.
6 A gambling game of cards, in which a player needs to get more points
to win, but not more than 21.
7 An animal’s hidden home.
8 A pair of straps worn over the shoulders to keep up trousers.
27
9 A substance that keeps away insects.
10 Any structure or place devoted to some saint, holy person, or deity,
as an altar, chapel, church, or the like.
( agenda, suspenders, shrine, blackjack, repellent, cargo, den,
salvage, gurney, paean)
6 Fill in the blanks with proper prepositions:
1 She has a deep caring _____ the animals.
2 I watch the plane to take _____ to the west.
3 We change _____ rough-and-tumble scavengers _____ gentle
archaeologists.
4 “The Man Who Never Washed His Dishes” is a morality play
_____ a dozen or so pages.
5 Twister is the game that ties you up _____ knots.
6 Night _____ night, I sat with her ____ the kitchen table.
7 We are pleased and proud ____ her.
8 Her room has been turned _____ a den.
9 The little cat still sits ____ the porch railing ____ the late
afternoon and looks _____ you.
WRITING
Write a paragraph about
- things your parents have taught you;
- things you would like to teach your own kids;
- the way your own agenda differs from your parents’ agenda;
- things you would like “to borrow” from Rachael’s life.
SELECTION FOUR
BEFORE READING
1 Think and say.
1 How do parents feel when there children grow up and live their
parents’ house? What are their biggest worries?
2 What kind of experience can both parents and children gain when
they stay separately?
28
2 Read two abstracts and a poem written by parents to their
children.
But as she’d grown as a daughter, so I’d grown as a father, and
learnt to bury away my wishful images of her, and to watch her take
charge, naturally enough, of her own directions and to develop her own
independence and will.
So what I’d got now was not the compliant doll of a father’s fancy,
but a glowing girl with a dazzling and complicated personality, one
with immense energy in chasing both happiness and despair, and who
expressed her love for me, as always, not in secret half-smiles and the
sharing of silences, but in noisy shouts, jolly punches, sharp jabs to the
stomach, and a lively burying of teeth in arms and earlobes.
Certainly she had become no dad’s soft shadow, nor ever she
would be now. She was existing on a different scale to my first fond
imaginings. She had become herself – a normal jeans-clad, horseriding, pop-swinging, guitar-bashing adolescent with a huge appetite
for the lustier pleasures of life.
Not at all what I planned or what I expected, but I know I didn’t
wish her changed.
Laurie Lee, from “Two Women”
TO TERI, LEAVING HOME
When the day comes for your child to leave home, you want them
to be able to say, “Mom, I’m ready! I can do it, Mom! I’m going to fly
on my own.” …
You are ready to go, Teri. I assure you you can fly. It is time for
you to do it. I don’t think it was wrong for you to leave, I only wish you
had chosen another way to do it …
You have mountains to climb – without me. I don’t even know
your world, I don’t know your mountains.
You have my love. You have my support and encouragement. You
have me believing you can do what you want to do – whatever it is.
That’s all I can give you now. I’ve done the best I could do as your
mother. I know I’ve failed you sometimes, it is unavoidable in raising a
29
human being – especially when you are only a human being yourself,
and you are still climbing your own mountains.
The best thing you can do is believe in yourself. Don’t be afraid to
try. Don’t be afraid to fail …Just dust yourself off and try again …
My love and thoughts go with you. My first child. My daughter.
Love, MOM
Judy Green Herbstreit,
from a letter to her daughter, 1979
IF
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied, don’t deal in lies.
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken.
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
30
And so hold when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son.
READING COMPREHENSION AND SHARING THOUGHTS
1 To whom is each piece you have read addressed?
2 When and why did parents write to their children? What discoveries
did they make about their children and themselves?
3 Why is “If” by R. Kipling sometimes called « a testament »?
4 What do all three pieces have in common with the previous selection
(“Excavating Rachael’s Room by R.J.Waller)?
5 Do you know what “generation gap” is? Do you have it in your
family?
SELECTION FIVE
BEFORE READING
1Think and say:
1 What makes a good marriage?
2 Are compromise and tolerance important for people in marriage?
2 Read another essay by R.J.Waller.
SLOW WALTZ FOR GEORGIA ANN
by Robert James Waller
I hear the slap of the clay as you work, late in the night. And I
know you are there in your studio, in bib overalls, an old sweater, and
heavy work shoes. Soon your wheel will begin to turn in time with
31
some faint and distant music, and the teapots and lamps and goblets
will lift effortlessly from nothing more than moistened earth.
So the night wind moves the trees outside, and I remember you
from a college-town party hall. Twenty-eight years ago now. Through
the smoke and across the tables we were taken with each other from the
start. An enchanted evening. Our own private cliché. The sort of thing
people don’t believe in anymore.
And then years later I watch you. Coming toward me on your
dancer’s walk through the early twilight of high-plateau India. Your
sari is silk, and blue above your sandals, your earrings are gold and
dangling long. Heads above bodies in white wicker chairs along the
veranda of the West End Hotel turn as you pass. Your already dark skin
has been made even darker from our days in the Bangalore sun, and
there are speculations about you. An Indian man asks, “Is she
Moroccan?” “No,” I reply. “She is Iowan.”
I take another beer from the refrigerator, hoping you stay in your
studio a while longer. I want to sit here by myself, listening to the
muffled sounds of your hands at work, and think what it means to be
married to you for twenty-five years. In another month, it will have
been that long.
I grew up dreaming of rivers and music and ancient cities and darkhaired women who sang old songs in cafes along the Seine. You were
raised to be a wife and a beauty, and you probably would have been
satisfied, maybe happier, with a more conventional man. At least it
took you a long time to discover what I am up to and to know this race
I run, a race between death and discovery. You were plainly
discomfited by my lurching from one passion to another, from
basketball to music, from the academy to think tanks, from city to city,
from the solitude of my study to the dark bars where I am at home with
my instruments.
Early on, with me dancing along early morning beaches and feeding
my demons, it was clear that you would need a life of your own if this
marriage were to flourish. That was your hardest struggle. It almost
broke us apart. But you found something in the clay, something that
quietly said, “This is me.”
32
And I knew we had won when the woman at the cocktail party
gushed: “Oh, you must be the potter’s husband!” Inside of me at that
moment, I shouted in celebrations. Not for myself, or even for us, but
for you. Chrysalis had died, you had become. Now the potter’s work
and the potter’s trade keep you centered like the clay.
Love? I cannot analyze that. It is of a piece. Taken apart, it becomes
something else, and the gull-like melody that is ours disappears. But
even in our difficult times, times when we took suitcases from closet
shelves and stared at each other in anger, love was there.
Liking is another matter. I can get a hold on that. Most of all, I
think, I like you for the good-natured understanding you worked so
hard to acquire, even if that understanding sometimes borders on
wavering tolerance.
You understand the need to live with old furniture and rusted cars
and rough wooden floors and vacuum cleaners that don’t vacuum, so
that a little money will be there when I yell over the side of the loft,
“Let’s go to Paris!”
Remember the time I was in graduate school and we had less than
$100 in the bank, when I considered trading our doddering Volkswagen
for a guitar? You crinkled your face, looked serious, and said, with no
hint of scold, “How can we get to the grocery store?” You said only
that. And I was grateful.
You tolerate one side of the living room stacked with music
equipment, while my canoe full of camping gear and two cats tenants
the other side, stretching from one corner over to where it inelegantly
mingles with an amplifier, several microphone stands, and old suitcases
full of cords and other necessary truck. I am working on the gunnels
and mumbling about river maps I can’t find and rotten weather and
wizards I am going out to search for. Over dinner, you smile softly and
ask, “How long do you think the canoe will be in the living room?” The
point is made. I will move it out tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.
You are older now. I can see that if I look hard. But I don’t. I have
always seen you in the soft focus. I see you standing in the winter on a
great stretch of deserted beach in the Netherlands Antilles brushing
your long and freshly washed hair in the sea wind from Venezuela. I
see you in khaki and sandals at the waterfront café in French Marigot
33
listening to an island band playing a decent imitation of vintage
American rock ‘ n ‘ roll. Chuck Berry and old Jerry Lee were part of
our courting years, and we grin at the aging lyrics – “Long distance
information, give me Memphis, Tennessee ….”
I glance and see you beside me at blackjack tables around the
world. Was it in Vegas where you wore a long gold dress and the fur
coat you bought for $50 at a second-hand clothing shop? I think so.
We played all night, I remember that. Guilty though you felt about
buying anything made of fur, you were the perfect 1930s vamp as I
counted cards in my blue suspenders.
Or I look up ever so slightly from the fingerboard of my jazz guitar
and watch as you play the second chorus of “Gone with the Wind”, the
one where you do the little two-fingered runs I like so well. You are
hunched over the keyboard, slightly swaying in pink and white and
wearing dark glasses. The sun hammers down, while people dance, by
a pool, on the Fourth of July, in Chicago.
And you are sleepy in bed and lit so gently by early light when I
bring you coffee on high, hard winter mornings, while the wood stove
putters around trying to douse the cold of the night. I have been up for
hours reading and writing. You are no morning person, so talk must
come later. Still, I hover around, clumsily, just to look at you and smell
the warm, perfumed scent of your body.
It seems I have spent a lifetime running toward you. I have tossed
in my bed in Arabian desert towns. I have stared off midnight balconies
in deep Asia, watching dhows older than me tug at their moorings and
long for the thrash of coastal waters, missing you and wondering about
you.
I am uneasy at being nearly thirty-hours’ flying time from you.
That’s too far. Then, over the miles and across the oceans, through a
thousand airports, I am home, wrinkled and worn, and you are there
with a single rose and a small sign that says, “Welcome Home, Captain
Cook, Welcome Home.” Late into the night we laugh as I take the gold
and silver presents from my battered suitcase.
I have trusted the years, and I was right to do so. They brought me
you. We have watched others’ lives intertwine and then unravel. But
we have held together. At least for this life, in this time.
34
Yet I am haunted by the feeling that we might not meet again, that
this might be just our one moment in the great sweep of things. Once,
as I lay on the floor, breathing through oxygen tubes, looking past the
somber faces of paramedics, I saw your tears, and I felt a great sadness,
worrying not about myself, but rather that I might not find you again in
the swirling crowds out there in the centuries to come. It was the loss of
you, not life, that I feared.
For we have come by different ways to this place. I have no feeling
that we have met before. No déjà vu. I don’t think it was you in
lavender by the sea as I rode by in A.D. 1206 or beside me in the
border wars. Or there in the Gallatins, a hundred years ago, lying with
me in the silver-green grass above some mountain town. I can tell by
the natural ease with which you wear fine clothes and the way your
mouth moves when you speak to waiters in good restaurants. You have
come the way of castles and cathedrals, of elegance and empire.
If you were there in the Gallatins, you were married to a wealthy
rancher and lived in a grand house. I was a gambler at the table or the
mountain man at the bar or the fiddler in the corner, playing a slow
waltz to his memories. The dust from your carriage was of more value
than my life in those days, and it drowned me in longing and sullied my
dreams as you passed by in the street. Somehow, though, for this life
and this time, we came together. You taught me about caring and
softness and intimacy. The task before me was to teach you about
music. And dreams. And how to savor the smell of ancient cities and
the sound of cards whispering across green felt. This I have done.
So I rest secure knowing that you have learned and that, in another
time, you might recognize me coming across the street of some
gambler’s town, in high brown boots with an old fiddle case over my
shoulder, as your carriage moves by in the dust. And perhaps you will
smile and nod and, for a strange and flickering moment, you will
remember how the waves of January wash the sea wall at Marigot.
COMPREHENSION CHECK AND TEXT ANALYSIS
1 How many characters are there in the essay?
2 How long has the author been married to his wife Georgia Ann?
35
3 Has their family life always been steady and peaceful?
4 What lessons did both the author and his wife learn after years of
marriage?
5 What is the author’s attitude to his wife? What features of hers does
he appreciate mostly? Read aloud to support your ideas and
arguments.
6 What do you think about Georgia Ann as a wife and a person?
7 Why is the essay entitled “Slow Waltz for Georgia Ann?
8 What style and what language does the author use to describe his
feelings and emotions? Go back to the text for illustrations.
9 Does the author really believe in everything he writes about? Do
you believe?
10 What do two essays you have read by Robert James Waller have in
common and what makes them different?
SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS
1 What can you say about the relations between your parents?
2 How long have your parents been held together?
3 Do you know much about when and how they met?
4 Does each of your parent contribute to a happy family life?
5 What are your family values?
6 Do you consider family a big treasure?
CONTENT VOCABULARY
1 Complete the sentences using the participles II you came across
in the text:
1 Water and air can make the iron ____________.
2 If people are kind and ready to help others we call them __________.
3 Confused and embarrassed people might feel _____________.
4 After striking things hard and often, beating them out of shape, they
become ______________.
5 To be ___________ by the feeling means to have this feeling
habitually or repeatedly.
( battered, haunted, rusted, discomfited, good-natured)
36
2 Guess the words through their definitions:
1 Glass or pottery drinking-vessel with a stem and base and no handle.
2 Period or season of grape harvesting.
3 Strong, persistent desire.
4 A person who is trained to assist a physician or to give the first aid or
other health care in the absence of a physician.
5 Nonwoven fabric of wool, fur or hair.
(longing, vintage, felt, goblet, paramedic)
3 Match the words on the left with their antonyms on the right:
to interwine –
new
to flourishspecial
conventional –
elegantly
battered –
to decay
clumsilyto unravel
4 Use proper prepositions when completing the sentences from the
text:
1 You probably have been satisfied, maybe happier, ____ a more
conventional man.
2 You were plainly discomfited _____ my lurching ____ one passion
_____ another, _____ basketball _____ music, ______ city _____ city,
_____ the solitude of my study _____ the dark bars where I am _____
home _____ my instruments.
3 When we took suitcases down _____ closet shelves and stared _____
each other ____ anger, love was there.
4 The sun hammers down, while people dance, ____ a pool, ____ the
Fourth ____ July, ____ Chicago.
5 You are sleepy ____ bed and lit so gently ____ early light.
5 Make a list of 12 compound words scrabbled below:
Twi tail time finger micro mid ear light ring para tea board
case cock life phone night medic key suit ball pot basket
board.
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PART II
BEFORE READING
“Never on Wednesday”by Richard A.Via was selected from “Plays for Reading:
Using Drama in EFL”, third edition, 1998. Dean Curry, who compiled the first
edition, dedicated these book of plays to Richard A.Via who “brought the magic
of Broadway theater to students of English as a Foreign Language”.
Read the play and reveal your language and artistic skills in the class.
NEVER ON WEDNESDAY
by Richard A. Via
CHARACTERS:
Fred, about 17 years old
Dorothy (Dot), about 16 years old
Tom, about 14 years old
Dad, 40-45 yeas old
Mother, 38-43 years old
NEVER ON WEDNESDAY is a look at an average family in the United States.
The conversation is very informal and includes a lot of teasing among the young
people. Tom, in fact, even mimics his father. Most of the conversation is the type
that might be repeated daily. The humor comes from seeing ourselves in a
natural situation.
_____________
Setting: The action takes place in the living room of a “typical” American
family. Dad is reading the evening newspaper and is sitting in a chair to
the right of a lamp table on stage right. Dorothy is in the chair to the left
of this table and is busily manicuring her fingernails. The sound of the
nail file as it scratches back and forth bothers Tom, who is trying to do
his homework. Tom is seated at a table behind the sofa on stage left. Fred
is stretched out on the sofa reading a comic book. Mother is off the stage
right, in the kitchen.
Time: Just after dinner(supper) – 7:30 p.m.
At Rise: We watch the quiet scene for a few moments. Then the phone
rings in the hall off stage left. Both Dot and Fred react quickly. Both
jump to answer it, but Fred is nearer and quicker. They speak as they get
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up, and at the same time. Fred thinks it’s his girl friend and Dot thinks
it’s her boy friend calling.
__________________
FRED. I’ll get it (Goes to the door and exits to the hall)
DOT. Oooooh! I think it’s for me. (She returns to the table to put the
nail file down) Tell him I’ll be there in a sec. (She looks at the hall
door, expecting to be called to the phone. When she isn’t, she sits and
starts working on her nails again. Dad and Tom pay no attention to this
activity)
TOM. (without looking up) Tell her I’m busy. Ask her to leave her
number.
(We hear Fred talking in the hall on the phone, but we cannot
understand what he is saying)
FRED. (standing in the doorway) Dad, can I use the car tonight?
TOM. (imitating Dad) No.
FRED.(goes to the left end of the sofa) Would you be quiet?
TOM. You’ll see… “No.”
FRED. (to Tom – annoyed) Don’t put ideas in his head. (Goes to dad’s
right. Starts talking at first step) – Dad, can I have the car tonight?
DAD. Uhmmm?
FRED. (slightly upset that Dad didn’t listen) I said, “Can I use the car
tonight?”
DAD. (correcting Fred’s English) May I …
FRED. Okay. May I?
DAD. May you what?
FRED.(really annoyed with the older generation – perhaps throws his
arms up in disgust) You mean you really didn’t hear anything I said
except “can”? (Goes behind Dad to center stage)
DOT.(actually teasing Dad rather than Fred) Haven’t you heard of the
generation gap? They turn us off.
DAD. Not as often as you turn us off.
FRED. You heard that – and she wasn’t even talking to you. (Goes
back to Dad’s left) Why don’t you hear me?
DOT. (teasing Fred) It’s your deep voice. It doesn’t carry.
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TOM. It won’t carry through that scratching you’re making with that
nail file.
DOT. (teasing Ton because he bites his fingernails) At least I don’t bite
my nails – like some people do.
TOM. (imitating nail-file noise – this sound should be loud and
exaggerated) Grrgh-grrgh. I can’t even do my homework.
FRED. (goes to the center again) Would you two cut it out. I’m trying
to reach Dad. (Goes to Dad’s left, behind the lamp table) Dad?
DAD.(without looking up) Uhmmm?
FRED. Dad?(Trying to make him listen, he stretches the word, Da-a-ad – perhaps almost singing. Then, as if trying to contact a spirit.) Dad,
give us a sign you are listening: one rap for YES, (raps on the table
once) two for NO. (raps twice)
DAD. (putting the paper down) Okay, you got through. What is it?
FRED. Whew! ( a sound like letting off steam, indicating relief) (Goes
to Dad’s right) Dad, may I use the car tonight?
Dad. No.(Goes back to his paper)
FRED. Wait!!! Don’t hang up! (as if Dad were on the phone). I am not
finished.
TOM. (smiles as he goes to the bookcase up center for a book) I told
you so.
(mother enters and listens to this bit of dialogue, Tom returns to the
table)
FRED. Back to your books, Einstein. (Goes to right center)
MOTHER. Fred, I have told you about that. (Goes to the sofa, sits on
the right end, and picks up knitting or sewing from the coffee
table)Rather than tease Tom, you’d better do a little studying yourself.
Dot. Do you like the color, Mother? (Shows her fingernails)
MOTHER. You shouldn’t do your nails in the living room, dear. They
should only be done in the privacy of one’s boudoir.
DOT. (simultaneously) …in the privacy of one’s boudoir. (Said with a
bored sound, because she has heard this so many times)
MOTHER. Yes. And Tom, why don’t you study in your own room?
TOM. This is where the action is – it’s too quiet up there.
DOT. Mother. (Goes to Mother) You didn’t answer me. Do you like
this color?
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MOTHER. Very pretty.
DOT. (going back to chair) It’s new … a special color for this month:
Passion Pink.
TOM. (teasing Dot, imitates the girls in TV commercials) “And my
hair color is special this month: Blatant Black.”
DOT. (not thinking he is funny) Oh, you are so funny. (Not laughing,
but flat:) Ha, ha, ha . . .
MOTHER. By the way, where was all that help I was going to have in
the kitchen with the dishes?
TOM. I had to do homework.
DOT. And my nails.
FRED. I have been trying to talk to Dad.
MOTHER. You kids are really great at finding excuses. Homework
isn’t so urgent when the Rolling Stones are on TV, and nails can stop
when there is someone to gossip with on the phone. (Slight pausethen:)
TOM. (pokes his mother’s back) What about Fred? Why don’t you
attack him?
MOTHER. Well … when a son wants to talk to his father, that’s
important.
FRED. I thought so, too. (Goes to the sofa and sits down)
MOTHER. What did you two talk about?
FRED. Nothing.
MOTHER. Nothing?
FRED. He said about ten words. (Indicates newspaper) I can’t crash the
newspaper barrier.
MOTHER. Paul?
(dad put the paper down immediately. He has been well trained by
Mother to listen to her when she speaks)
DAD. Yes, dear?
TOM. That’s training!
MOTHER. (to Tom) Do you want to leave the room? (Tom shakes his
head No)
MOTHER. Then behave yourself.
DAD. Yes, dear? You wanted me?
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MOTHER. No, Paul. Fred wanted to talk to you. (Fred starts to go to
Dad, gets to center)
DAD. Oh, that. (He starts reading again- paper up)
FRED. (turns back to Mother) You see! That! He refers to me as “that’!
MOTHER. Don’t be upset … He is tired. Paul?
DAD. (paper down) Yes, dear?
MOTHER. (signaling Fred to go to Dad) Now, go ahead.
FRED. (quickly) Dad, may I …(Goes quickly to Dad’s right)
DAD. No. (paper up)
FRED. (to Dad) Wait. (goes back to center. To Mother:) You see?
MOTHER. (rises, goes to Fred) What was it you wanted to talk to him
about?
DAD. (paper down) He wants to use the car. (paper up)
MOTHER. (goes to Dad’s right) Well, why can’t he?
DAD. (paper down) It’s Wednesday. (paper up)
MOTHER. Yes, it’s Wednesday.
DOT. You don’t need a calendar in this house. You just ask Dad for the
car and he tells you what day it is.
MOTHER. (goes behind table near Dad) Dorothy, that’s not nice.
DOT. Well, it’s true. Yesterday I asked and he said, “No, it’s Tuesday.”
DAD. (paper down) You know the rules.
(Speaking together:)
FRED. Yes, we know the rules. Weekends only.
TOM. Yes, you may only use the car on weekends.
DOT. Do we ever! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon.
DAD. (paper up) Right.
MOTHER. (to Fred) What did you want the car for?
DAD. (paper down) I said No. (paper up)
MOTHER. Now, don’t be so harsh. Maybe there’s a special reason for
him needing the car.
DAD. (paper down) A rule is a rule. (paper up)
(Tom mouths the above line as Dad says it, but makes no sound)
MOTHER. (goes to Fred) Where were you going?
TOM. (guessing why he wants the car and teasing) To a drive-in movie
with that new girl.
DOT. (referring to the new girl) She bleaches her hair, you know.
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FRED. She does not.
MOTHER. (disappointed in Fred, goes to the sofa and sits down) You
want the car to date on a week night?
FRED. No! (Very annoyed with Tom, he goes to him and musses his
hair) See what you started. Why don’t you grow up?
MOTHER. Now, boys (meaning, Don’t start a fight). What did you
want the car for, Fred?
FRED. Well, it’s secret.
DOT. (comes back to center) It was her, though, wasn’t it? As soon as
you hung up you came in and asked Dad for the car.
TOM. I don’t go with girls who call me. (Rises, stretches. His back is
tired from doing homework:) I call them. I am going to be the boss and
make the decisions. No girl is going to run my life. (Sits down)
FRED. Some boss! Every time you call a girl, she hangs up on you.
TOM. (very strong, defending his manhood). That’s not so!
MOTHER. Let’s not start again. Now both of you, be quiet.
FRED. Look, Mom. (Goes back to the sofa, sits down) I really need the
car. Honest.
MOTHER. Don’t you think you ought to tell us where you are going?
FRED. Can’t you trust me? It’s a surprise.
TOM. (almost laughing – teasing Fred) Yeah, I bet. (Meaning: I am
sure it will be a surprise!) We were surprised that time you smashed
the left fender, too. (Takes book back to shelf)
FRED. (disgusted) Oh, forget it. (Starts for door left) I’ll go by taxi.
(The word “taxi” makes Dad listen)
DAD. (paper down) To a drive-in-movie?
FRED. I told you I am not going to a movie. (Comes back a step)
DAD. Well, a taxi anywhere will be expensive.
FRED. I have to go, and you won’t let me use the car.
DAD. All right. Then let’s talk it over. What’s so urgent? (Puts paper
down on table)
MOTHER. He said it was a secret.
FRED. A surprise.
DAD. And you can’t tell us what it is!
DOT. I’m going to use that technique the next time I want something.
DAD. I haven’t said Yes yet.
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MOTHER. Don’t you think you could let him this time, Paul?
DAD. How long will you want it?
FRED. If I don’t hurry, I won’t need it at all. Grandma’s at the station.
MOTHER.(rises) Grandma?!
FRED. Yes! She said she’d take a taxi, but I said I’d be right down…
Oh my gosh, she’s still on the phone! (He rushes into the hall)
DAD. (gets up) Why didn’t she let us know?
MOTHER. Fred said she wanted to surprise us.
( Fred returns)
DAD. You’d better get moving.
DOT. Can I ride down with you? (Goes to door left)
TOM. Me, too. (Closes books and goes to the door)
MOTHER. What about your homework and your nails?
DOT. They are okay. (Exits)
TOM. I’ll do it later. (Exits)
MOTHER. Hurry, dear. What are you waiting for?
FRED. The keys.
DAD. Oh … oh, sorry. (Goes to Fred, hands him the keys) Now drive
careful.
MOTHER. (correcting Dad’s English) Carefully (with strong stress on
the last syllable).
DAD. Yes, dear. (He watches them leave)
MOTHER. Now why didn’t she let me know she was coming? She
knows I like to have things ready. (Mother picks up a comic book and
the sewing from the sofa and coffee table. She goes to the chair right
and picks up the newspaper, then to the lamp table and picks up all
manicure staff)
DAD. (as he crosses to his chair to resume reading) If she let you
know, you’ll get all worked up about everything …(He can’t find his
paper) …cooking … cleaning… Tom’s hair (He suddenly sees that
Mother has the paper and goes to her for it)
MOTHER. (who now is picking up all of Tom’s books and papers and
putting everything in the bookcase) But she should have called.
Suppose we’d been away?
DAD. (gets his paper) In the middle of the week? With the kids in
school and me at work? Not likely!
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MOTHER. Just the same, I wish I’d known.
DAD. (sits down) No communication …(hunts for what he was
reading) … generation gap …(he finds it) … only at the other end of
the line. (Paper up – Dad reads. Mother continues to straiten things up
as the curtain falls)
CURTAIN
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PART III
WIT & WISDOM
The quotations and abstracts below have been selected topically and
can be used for sharing your ideas either orally or in writing.
Dad has long and earnest conversations with his baby daughter. He tells
her she is noisy, undisciplined and manipulative – and she will be sent
back if she doesn’t pull herself together.
And the baby smiles complacently. She has him where she wants him.
- Pam Brown
Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children;
now, I have six children and no theories.
- John Wilmont, Earl of Rochester
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older, they judge
them; sometimes, they forgive them.
- Oscar Wild
All mothers have intuition. The great ones have radar.
- Cathy Guisewite
Mothers were our guide in all things and knew everything, they were
our first inspiration, they loved us and wanted us to grow up a credit to
them. They set the rules and when reason failed they had the last,
irrefutable word – because I am your mother and I say so!
You give your children two things: you give them roots and you give
them wings.
- Anna Tochter
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Son, how can I help you see?
May I give you my shoulders to stand on?
Now you see farther than me.
Now you see for both of us.
Won’t you tell me what you see?
- H.Jackson Brown, Jr.
47