"An American Childhood"

Scratch Outline:

1. Describes what purpose tackling has in football.

2. Tells what they did to stay active in winter months.

3. Begins a specific snowball throwing memory.

4. Introduces and depicts the Fahey Boys and Chickie.

5. Describes the passing traffic.

6. Describes a specific, perfectly made snowball.

7. Establishes the appearance of the black Buick.

8. Narrates the snowball hitting the windshield.

9. Narrates the driver pulling the car over.

10. Describes being chased by the driver of the Buick.

11. Explains the decision to split up the group in the chase.

12. Identifies the paths they took to run from the man.

13. Describes what she was thinking about while being chased.

14. Narrates more running and the feelings that the man wouldn't tire out, ever.

15. Reveals that they were caught.

16. Explains what happened immediately after being stopped.

17. Narrares all three people trying to catch their breaths.

18. Identifies the man's first words of the long rant.

19.  Narrates what she was really thinking about as he was letting them have it.

20. Describes how she didn't understand why he only chewed them out.

21. Explains that she has never been as profoundly emotionally effected since that day of being chased.

Summation:

Remembering stories from your childhood that are filled with laughter and excitement is important because I feel that we often forget what it means to live one hundred percent in the moment. In my experience the older I get the more focused I am on getting to the next level and not just being in the moment that I’m in right then. This is one of the points that Dillard was trying to get across to the readers. In the last paragraph she talks about if the man from the Buick would have killed the two of them right then she would have died totally content because never again did she have to use her entire self like she did that day running from the man in the Buick. I think that’s part of the living for the moment and living it fully. If we put everything that we had into every second of every day, imagine what could get accomplished and how much more self confident everyone would be.

At the Beginning of Dillard’s story she talks about football and the things that it taught her. One line that hit me was when she talks about tackling and how sometimes you get the opposing player and sometimes you land flat on your face    not taking anyone but yourself down; but if you are going to go for the tackle you have to go at it full on not letting up at all. Yes, this is talking about football but I think Dillard is really getting at life in general. The purpose of football showing that we have to go full force into life, expecting there to be some times when we reach our goals, but sometimes we just miss the mark completely. The important thing is that everyone SIEZE THE DAY, carpe diem!