Tuesday, January 24, 2012

"Welding with Children"


So, I'm back at Fairfield University for my second semester of college. To be honest, it is like starting my first semester all over again! I have that same anxious feeling of starting my classes and meeting more new people. Naturally this time around is a little better because I already know the people I live with and I am able to recognize some familiar faces in the quad.
I returned to Bryan’s En12 class on the first day of school. I wasn’t too sure if I would enjoy a rollover class. I figured the teacher would know all of us and the class would be way more demanding this semester opposed to having a breand new teacher. To my surprise, going into the class was refreshing. I knew my professor and all of the other students already. Although the class requires more reading to be done I know that it will become manageable.
On that first day of class we were assigned our first short story. It was a fourteen-page printout called “Welding with Children.” I was not dreading the story, but I was dreading the fact that I was back into the swing of college and homework (h-dubbs) already. When I read the story I realized it wasn’t so bad. It had a lot of themes about family. I thought it was a good story to start the semester off because many of us may have been missing our families from home already. (I know I was.)
“Welding with Children” was about a man named Bruton who had four daughters that he had raised wrong that he wasn’t necessarily ‘proud’ of. Each daughter had a child out of wedlock, giving Bruton four grandchildren.
Bruton was a “now-and-then welder” from Louisiana. He went to college and “got his money’s worth by learning about people who don’t have hearts bigger than bird shot.” One day his four grandchildren were dropped off to his house to be watched. The children were not well behaved in any way shape or form. Needless to say, they were not being raised properly and Bruton realized that he had a second chance at raising children right. He decided to take their eyes off of the television for a change and actually read to them. He even contemplated leaving Louisiana with his grandkids and starting a whole new life with them. It was actually Fordlyson (a sleaze-ball from town) who made Bruton recognize that he had to “deal directly with the children.” He would need to take them to Church, clean his yard, and be around them as much as possible.
I think the underlying message of the story is what Bruton finally realizes. The message is clear and stated. It is that “everything worth doing hurts like hell.” I agree with this statement and this message puts school into focus for me. Sure, it may be hard to focus on homework while people are going out but that struggle is what’s worth doing and it will pay off in the end. Maybe I’m way off, but I believe that is why this was the first story we read for the semester and I really enjoyed reading it.

1 comment:

  1. Kelly, your post is a great model for others to read. You think with the text from quoting the text. You use Gatreaux's story to make sense of your freshmen story. This is a great start. BRC

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