I’ll never forget being 15 years old and reading “The Sun Also Rises” for the first time.

It hasn’t stayed with me because it is such a wonderful book, but because I read it under less then ideal circumstances. I was in a school play back then and every ten minutes I had put the book down and get on stage.

Three years later I was talking to a room full of Hemingway fans, telling them I hadn’t cared for the book. One of them asked me, “Didn’t you find it compelling that the male and female leads could never consummate their love affair because of the war?”

I was confused. I re-read the book and discovered that the hero was impotent as a result of a war wound, a fact that had eluded me after my first reading. I had just thought the protagonist was kind of wuss.

Some books are poorly written. But it’s not always the author’s fault. Sometimes a book is just poorly read. 

I’m an avid reader. I read novels, non-fiction, short fiction, newspapers, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes, anything.        

In fact I read so much that it’s important for me to remind myself from time to time that reading is something special. That good reading takes concentration, practice and effort, just like good writing does.

Careful reading might save you the embarrassment I suffered of asking a room full of Hemingway fans, “What’s the big deal?”

So here’s a list of things to remember next time you get the urge to bond with a book.

• Turn everything but the lights off!

Nothing could be simpler, but for the modern reader it’s sometimes hard to disconnect from the rest of the world. Turn off the TV, the stereo and most of all, your phone. Your book will thank you.

• Find a comfortable place.

Find a place to read that allows you to forget your body for a while. If you’re constantly shifting around, you won’t enjoy your reading. So put your feet up, have something nearby to drink, and don’t forget to use the bathroom before you begin.

• Set aside some time.

Don’t get into a new book ten minutes before an appointment. If you don’t have at least a half an hour to dedicate to reading, read later.

• If you don’t like what your reading, put it down and find something new.

Don’t force yourself to read something just because you’ve heard good things about a particular book or author. If you don’t like it at first, you probably won’t enjoy it later. So just set it aside and find something you do like.

But I did. It was Nov. 4 and I paid the price in scowls and scorn. Barack Obama was giving his acceptance speech and I didn’t want to miss a word.

No one can dispute Obama’s gift for elocution. Not only did his words move the wind-swept crowd in Chicago that night, they stirred people’s emotions around the nation and more specifically in my living room.

Good oratory makes me want to stand up and say “Yes!” It brings tears to my eyes, and makes me swallow hard against the lump in my throat. It makes me hopeful that as a nation we might still reach some higher goal.

Obama’s speech — not just his words, but the manner in which they were delivered — did all of the above.

His speech captured attention around the nation and the world.

Reporter Zafar Sobhan of The Daily Star put it like this, “We can’t all be Barack Obama, but we can all be foot-soldiers and do our little bit to build this country into the land our fore-fathers and mothers fought for. We just need to believe that we can do it. If there is a lesson to be taken away from Obama’s victory, it is this. Yes we can.”

Ten years from now I probably won’t remember what I was doing on Nov. 4, 2008.

The story of my night was mundane and reads something like this: went to dinner, came home, followed election results online, pissed of my girlfriend and was encouraged in the face of mounting hopelessness.

Election night will not be remembered by one and all for years to come as Sept. 11, 2001 is. It will fade away in our collective memories, just as most of Obama’s election night speech eludes me now. But one thing will not change or fade or be forgotten. The way I felt when I heard him say, “Yes, we can.”

As part of the course for Journalism 325 at Chico State University, my classmates and I have each been paired with a senior citizen living at the active retirement center Sycamore Glenn.

Over the course of several interviews with our partners we will each make a transcript of our interviews and then turn those oral histories into full-length feature stories.

I was paired with 91- year-old, Perry Nethington. We met for the first time just about a month ago, and have since spent about 4 hours together.

We first met at the retirement center. I arrived promptly at 2 pm. We shook hands and made our way slowly to his room. Along the way we talked.

I asking him how he was and other general questions, but we we’re still no closer to his room, or so it seemed to me, we were walking so slowly.

I tried to fill in the emptiness of our conversation with some chitchat about the project.

“So I’m here to take the most interesting parts of your life and turn them into a story,” I said. “How do you feel about telling your life story to a stranger and letting them turn it into something other people might read?”

“Oh, I’m very exited,” he said. “I just don’t know what I can tell you that you’ll think is interesting,” he said.

“Great,” I thought to myself, “Just my luck I get paired off with the most boring guy here.”

By now were almost half way to his room, and we filled the space in-between with more idle conversation.

When we got to his room, I explained the project in greater detail and then began our first interview without much hope of learning anything of great interest or excitement.

“What are you most thankful for?” I asked.

“Oh, I thank the Lord for blessing me,” he said. “For both of my wives.”

Well now we’re getting somewhere I thought to myself. Maybe I lucked out after all and got paired with a perverse Mormon polygamist.

But alas, no, he simply remarried after his first wife died, and I had to keep searching for an interesting story angle.

But Mr. Nethington is interesting and he has had a full and productive life. He’s fathered two children of his own, and helped raise countless grandchildren. He had a long carrier working for the state on workers rights issues, and he was a Marine before the outbreak of World War Two. All and all, not a dull life.

Me: Incidental contact mistaken for true love.

Oral history partner: Loves God, but not the gays. 

Strolling along the sidewalk of E. 7 Street between Pine Street and Woodland Avenue at sunset is like walking through a peaceful dream. The street is quiet and the light is soft and warm, even in the middle of October. There is a quality of light unique to Chico, which exists only in this town and it’s more pronounced here than anywhere else. I love this street.

I’ve lived in Chico a long time, and ridden to and from the park along this street in all seasons. I’ve passed down this street in the middle of a rain storm, at the crack of dawn and stumblingly drunk, but it’s never as beautiful as it is when the sun sets in October.

I’d like to buy a house here some day. The houses are all so different, and yet they are similar. They are warm and inviting, even from the outside. This is a quintessential middleclass Chico neighborhood. There are a lot of Obama signs in front of houses and in yards. I think I’d probably fit right in.

I imagine that over the years many of the University’s professors have lived here. Maybe some city councilors, elementary school teachers, grocery clerks or mechanics. It doesn’t really matter who lives here, as long as they know they’re lucky.

Bus conversation notes

Women- I didn’t think they would either, but it was fun for us. We were free to party you know?

Man- Ya.

Women- It was just kind of our first chance to party away from our families.

Man- Ya, but you can party with your family too.

Women- Ya?

Man- Ya I remember going to with my mom to my sisters wedding.

Women- Wait, didn’t she marry Darrin?

Man- Ya.

Women- I went to school with Darrin. What’s he doing now?

Man- He’s in the air force.

Women- Oh.

Man- Anyway, Kevin was there; he and my mom have been kind off and on. Mom was having fun. She had a few drinks. He was dead sober.

Women- Oh ya?

Man- Ya, you should have seen her trying to dance with him.

This was a conversation between a young man and women sitting across from me on the bus. They sat side by side, the young man was on my left. He was wearing a plaid button-up, blue jeans, and Vans skater shoes. He had sunglasses pushed up on his head. He had short-cropped sandy colored hair and he was sipping from a cup of coffee. He was slender, maybe 5’9” and 140-150 lbs. A green backpack rested at his feet.

            She was taller then he was, about 6’1”. She had long brown hair, very straight. It ran down between her shoulder blades and draped over her shoulders. She was also slender, maybe about 150 lbs. She had on blue shorts that went down to her knees. She was wearing a white tee shirt and also had sunglass pushed up on her head. An oval shaped silver necklace hung from her neck on a simple black string. She had on sandals (flip-flops) and was holding a black women’s wallet.

Story ideas:

1. Do students often party with their parents? Do they often do so, or only at special occasions like weddings?
2. It might be interesting to examine military weddings. Do young people get married before they do their military service? Do men and women in the armed forces marry each other?
3. How do students feel about their single parents dating? How do parents feel about exposing their fully-grown children to their romantic exploits?

Waiting for the bus

Women- I meant to ask you something but now I forget.

(Silence)

Women- Oh, ya, I wanted to ask you what time you wanted to leave for Reno this weekend?

Man- I don’t know.

Women- Did you want to stay for the whole weekend?

Man-Ya.

Women- I talked to Paul, we can stay with them till Sunday.

Man- I’ll call Justin; see if he wants to go out.

Women- Saturday?

Man- Ya.

Women- Is he still living with that girl?

Man- Ya.

They were standing at the bus stop a little to my right. It was hard to write standing up. He was wearing a black tee shirt and tan shorts. He had on sunglasses and a black baseball hat with “C” on it. He was wearing sandals and a backpack. He was short, about 5’4” and 130-140lbs. He had short blond hair coming out the bottom of his hat. He seemed disinterested in the conversation; he was playing with his cell phone.

            She was about the same height, but she was heaver set, maybe 160 lbs. or so. She was also wearing a black shirt but hers had a picture of a person’s face on it in it in white ink. She had blond hair that went down to just above her shoulders; I don’t think she was a natural blond. Her roots were dark. She was driving this conversation. She was wearing blue jeans and black shoes. She was not wearing a backpack.

Story ideas:

1. With gas prices being what they are, do many students still go out of town over the weekend to party? Is Reno a popular destination?
2. Do college age couples often go on short weekend vacations together? Do they often stay with friends or in hotels?
3. Do students travel to Reno to gamble? To party at clubs and casinos?

Cell Phone

Hey What’s up?

Not much, I just got my cast off.

No, I’m doing pretty good. They just took it off last week and I’m getting my range of movement back.

Well, when I fell on it I really did a number on it, but I’m starting to use it more.

(Long pause)

Well, it has a few glitches, but some of the graphics are great, the trees and the water. If you shoot at the water right it will actually create shock waves.

Some people had complaints, but I thought it was pretty cool.

From what I’ve heard it’s gotten pretty good reviews from polls and stuff.

Oh, Star Craft has got to come out.

That should be a fun game.

I can’t wait; I grew up playing that game.

This young man was wearing a grey long sleeve shirt and a sliver necklace with of a pentagram. He had on long green pants and black boots. His shirt was tucked in. He had on a black studded belt. He was sitting in front of me on the bus, and when I passed his seat he was drawing. It looked like he was drawing characters from a super heroes comic book. He had curly red hair that was cut into a kind of mullet. Short on top but hanging long in the back. He had on black steel rimed glasses.

Story ideas:

1. Do students spend a lot of time playing video games? Do they talk about release dates and think of games they way some people think of movies?
2. Do young people worry about medical bills because they oft times don’t have insurance? What happens if you break a bone? Can most young people work after such an injury?
3. Is there a kind of social community that revolves around gaming? Do people who otherwise have little in common come together over something like video games?

1. This Hunter Thompson classic is written in the first person.
2. The envisioned audience includes: anybody who’s ever taken hallucinogens in the desert, anybody who’s ever wanted to take hallucinogens in the desert, or anybody who wants to know what happens to a high strung reporter with an addictive personality and his “lawyer” when they take hallucinogenic drugs in the desert. A pretty broad stroke of people I imagine.
3. There is no time anchor in the lead.
4. The tone is comical and also startling. It’s eye opening and engaging. It’s the kind of lead that can mislead hundreds of young Americans every year into thinking that it might be a good idea to drop acid and drive to Vegas. It’s the quintessential lead for a book about discovering the American dream.
5. I got into journalism largely because I read “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trial: ‘72” as a young man. Because of my attachment to Thompson I am unable to separate his writing voice from his actual voice. I can literally hear him talking when I read his work because I have actually heard him speak before (on tape and film). However I’m sure that readers less versed in “The Doctor’s” background would find his “voice” undeniably original.
6. The narrator and the author are one and the same.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; most of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with the digital watches.”

1. This is written in an omniscient narrative voice.
2. The envisioned audience includes anyone with a sense of humor.
3. The reference to digital watches as if they are something new and cool suggests that this book was written sometime in the early ‘80s.
4. The tone is typically British. It’s dry and droll, and it explores deep philosophical issues like “happiness” in an off-handed, flippant sort of way.
5. The author’s tone is witty, and his imagination is far reaching. Because he references the earth’s position in the galaxy we can gather that we as audience members are in for a far-flung, intergalactic ride.
6. The voice of the narrator and the author are too similar to distinguish one from the other.

“In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.

Nineteen minutes is how long it took the Tennessee Titans to sell out of tickets to the play-offs. It’s the length of a sitcom, minus the commercials. It’s the driving distance from the Vermont border to the town of Sterling, New Hampshire.

In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem.

In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.”

1. The narrator’s voice is indistinguishable in this lead.
2. The audience envisioned for this lead encompasses anybody who can tell time. Actually even people who can’t tell time are given references to relate. This kind of lead is meant to draw in everybody.
3. The only time anchor I can pick up on is the reference to the Titans’ playoff drive. But I don’t know when in the last ten years the Titans have made it to the post season.
4. The tone is dramatic. It’s got the kind of flare that gets readers wondering what this story is going to be about.
5. The author is over dramatic, and spent a lot of time thinking about 19-minute time spans. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to convey.
6. I can’t distinguish one voice from the other.

“On a very hot day in August of 1994, my wife told me she was going down to the Derry Rite Aid to pick up a refill on her sinus medicine prescription – this sis stuff you can buy over the counter these days, I believe. I’d finished my writing for the day and offered to pick it up for her. She said thanks, but she wanted to get a piece of fish at the supermarket next door anyway; two birds with one stone and all that. She blew a kiss at me off the palm of her hand and went out. The next time I saw her, she was on TV. That’s how you identify the dead here in Derry – no walking down a subterranean corridor with green tiles on the walls and long fluorescent bars overhead, no naked body rolling out of a chilly drawer on casters; you just go into an office marked “private” and look at a TV screen and say yep or nope.”

1. The narrative voice in this lead is first person.
2. I’m not entirely sure who the envisioned audience is. It could be anyone. I’m guessing the audience will generally be a little older, maybe 45 and older, married readers, living “typical” lifestyles.
3. The author gives us the date in the first sentence.
4. The tone is very serious, right from word one. Even before the narrator relates the information regarding the death of his wife, we can tell that this story is not going to have a happy ending.
5. I can hear a widower talking. I picked up on that almost right away. Even when he was describing the mundane nature of the Derry Rite Aid, I got that life with his wife was drawing to a close.
6. In this case the author and the narrator are one and the same.

Jose Rojas

JOUR 325

8-29-08

Sergy El-Morshedy found himself alone in the wilds above Santa Cruz at the age of 17. Armed with little more than a rain tarp, the clothes on his back, a flashlight and a bottle of water, he was left to his own devices for 36 hours in what he calls, “A short bout of wilderness survival.”

He didn’t crash land a plane, or escape kidnappers in the rugged brush. No, he was dumped in the woods and left alone for a day and a half by none other than his high school administrators.

As part of an outdoor survival program, he and several other students were spread out around the Santa Cruz wilderness among the towering costal pines and rolling foothills. In the slanting afternoon sunlight, El-Morshedy hiked a few weary miles before finding a place to camp for the night. He went about making himself as comfortable as possible.  He had nothing to eat. That night the bone-rattling cold kept him from getting much sleep. “I was freezing my butt off,” he said.

El-Morshedy is now 21 years old. He stands around 5’10” and has a strong, broad build. He has a patchy but well maintained growth of facial hair, brown eyes, black hair, and he’s wearing a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” T-shirt. He’s got a quiet voice and a calm, relaxed demeanor.

It’s hard to imagine the reserved El- Morshedy being lonely, but after 36 hours alone the solitude was worse then the hunger and the cold, he said.