My mom met dad during her senior year of high school while out with her best friend one night. From that day on they were inseparable and within 3 months, they were engaged and planning their life together. They agreed on everything from where they’d buy their first home to where they’d raise their children. He would be the breadwinner and she would be a stay home mom. After the first pregnancy, their relationship seemed to be heading in the wrong direction. Suddenly things weren’t perfect anymore and they began to realize their views on many things weren’t shared like what kind of family vehicle to own, spending habits and lifestyles.
Before the kids, mom didn’t mind the fast cars. She thought it was fun once in a while to do a burn out. But after the babies came, her demeanor changed. She wanted a safe car to do her errands in especially when the kids were with her, no more of this hot rod business. She also thought motorcycles; especially the loud ones were for gang members and tried to forbid dad from getting one. Being a backyard mechanic, dad loved to tinker on anything to make it go faster, sound louder and turn heads. This was what he did best and enjoyed every minute of it. Then he found his passion, motorcycles, Harley’s in particular. Once he brought that bike into the yard, all hell broke loose.
Mother was very frugal; she could stretch a buck for a week. She was very good at saving money and always thought you needed to have a certain amount in the bank at all times and only purchase out of necessity. Dad figured you only live once and you can’t take it with you, needless to say, he won the battle. He would spend money on whatever he thought was a deal too good not to pass up. When he spent the saving on that new bike, things really started spiraling out of control; the arguing intensified and the stress was building. They were no longer seeing eye to eye on the finances.
The upbringing between my parents was completely opposite and the longer they were together, the harder it impacted their marriage. Mom was a high school graduate; dad was an 8th grade drop out. Mom was raised Protestant and her father was the minister of the local church. Dad was Catholic and his father was the town drunk. Mom grew up in a loving home with affection and respect while dad was smacked around, hungry and fought for survival. Their lifestyle choices and the differences between the two were defeating their vows.
After a few years, the marriage started to fall apart and unfortunately the wounds were too deep to rectify the damage. My mother couldn’t stand dads running around; he couldn’t stand the holier than thou. He liked to stay out late and party, she didn’t. She wanted to save, he wanted to spend; divorce was inevitable. Even after it was over, mom never had a bad word to say about dad nor did he about her. The end of their marriage wasn’t amicable but they made sure their children got through it with as little scarring as possible. Although my parents couldn’t see eye on everything, and had a failed marriage, they still raised me with all the love and affection any parent could, and I am very thankful to still have them both in my life today.
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You've cleaned this up, made it a better English paper, clearer, neater. But in the process...you killed the pleasure you (and the reader) had in writing the first version. That version had its problems, but to lose all that story material in graf 1? The snappy stuff (though sometimes repetitious) in grafs 2/3/4? Hell, I feel bad--as if I'm teaching you to write less well that you're capable of! It's a better English paper--but not as good a piece of writing.....
ReplyDeleteIf I didn't think this was passing, I wouldn't take it, but I do and I will. I wish we had a review week though where I could go back and reassign this to you so you could write it as clearly and cleanly as version two, as snappy as version 1.