An Icy Ride, Repeated Over and Over

Author's Note: This decriptive piece was done at this year's Young Author's and Artist's Conference, the 25th annual. We were asked to react to a work of art and reflect upon what it reminded us of. Please note the use of descriptive language decribing my vacation of spring 2012.

Water that is 44 degrees is not the kind one would choose to bath in, to wash one’s face with, or to dip your toes in, even on a hot summer day.  That temperature brings about thoughts of crisp and cold mornings in November and December, and on into January and February in the region of the United States we call the Midwest. Perhaps this is why so many people who live in the more northern regions of the U.S. choose to migrate south for days, weeks and even months at a time.  It is in this part of the country where the temperature of the air remains warm for most of the year: welcoming to our unbundled and uncovered skin exposed to the summer-like air. This warmth we feel is the opposite of what those in the north experience for the better parts of five months: the cold, wet, icy months we describe as winter. Somehow that 44 degree water seems inviting, almost tempting, when the surrounding air is near ninety degrees, even in the shade: a place where the cold and icy reminders of winter meet the warm and inviting feelings of summer.  Slide Rock State Park, near Sedona, Arizona is where the swift flow of fresh snow-melt waters acts as a magnet to the curious, the adventurous, and the unknowing. Here the experience of that 44 degree water can be etched on our skin and soaked into our bones as visitors slip down the narrow waterway created by the erosion of centuries of spring and summer snow runoff from the mountains of southern Arizona.

Stepping into the water at first is breathtaking, but not the breathtaking feeling of a Miami Beach sunrise, or a San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge sunset in all of their colorful and symbolic beauty. Oak Creek’s icy-cold water literally takes your breath away, almost paralyzing you when you first step in, and yet your feet up to your ankles are the only parts of your body exposed to the water! Never mind sitting down slowly, because most would not even attempt to sit.  The best way to become one with the water is to jump right in, demanding that your body adjust in an instant to the shock of the change.  It is hard to keep from crying out once the water covers your legs and torso, yet most everyone who does take the plunge gives forth a moaning “ohhhhhh”, along with the facial contortions that go along with grandma squeezing your cheeks when she firsts greets you on a visit. With your hands raised high in the air, you begin your decent from the top to the bottom of the smooth-rock slide. Your journey only takes 20 or so seconds, but is seems like an eternity, mostly due to the cold water stinging your body anywhere it touches. Yet once you reach the bottom, where the rushing water slows and forms a pool, only then do you have time to react, and swim to the side of the natural pool.  Grasping the rock edge, you pull yourself out of the water so that the sun and air can warm your body.  But somehow and for no particular reason, you do it all over again because the ride down the slide was that great!

Roger Becomes...

Author's Note:  In this piece, an alternative ending was created for the Langston Hughes short story "Thank You Ma'am". By using text evidence and prediction skills based upon logical events, I have envisioned a place where the main character, Roger, might gravitate towards as he grows older. 

Startled by the sound of the door slamming behind him, Roger almost fell from the stoop.  Reflecting on what had just happened to him in the last hour or so, the boy thought about the things she said to him; the things she did for him and how her “words of wisdom” changed his view of what he wanted to do with his life. Then, proudly he yelled so all could hear, even though it was well past one a.m., “Thank you Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, I won’t let you down!” 

As he meandered down the streets dimly lit by the poor lighting of the neighborhood, Roger said to himself that he wanted to do things in his life the way the older woman would do them: helping those in need. There were plenty of those kinds of kids, friends of his, in the neighborhood: the kind who had no direction, no role models, and no hope. The boy felt that this was his chance to make a difference in his community. But could he change the lives of kids who didn’t want to change, those kids who had managed to set their course in life already?

Roger new it would be a challenge to be positive in a world surrounding him where despair and little hope existed, yet he knew this could not deter him from his goal: to be a role model for his friends and the “little ones” in the surrounding neighborhood. Helping those kids who didn't have a parent figure to guide them, to give them advice, or to provide them a meal when they were hungry was something Roger could do, as Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones had done for him.

Living the life of a thief was no way to grow up, and he was going to make sure that Jimmy and Robert, his two best friends, along with the countless kids on the streets, would not go down the path so many of their older friends chose: the life that lead to despair and depression, the life of the criminal element.  He was going to make a difference, for himself and others, today!