Міністерство освіти і науки УкраїниСумський державний університет

FAMILY IS THE BIGGESТ TREASURE

Збірник англомовних художніх текстів

та лексико-граматичних завдань до них

для студентів 3-5-х курсів усіх спеціальностей

денної форми навчання

Суми

Видавництво СумДУ

2009

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FAMILY IS THE BIGGESТ TREASURE Збірник англомовних художніх текстів та лексико-граматичних

завдань до них для студентів 3-5-х курсів усіх спеціальностей

/ Укладач а.М.Дядечко.– Суми: Вид-во СумДУ, 2009. – 46 с.

Кафедра іноземних мов

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PART 1

SELECTION ONE

BEFORE READING“The First Day of School”is a short story by William Saroyan. William Saroyan (1908-1981) was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and plays, many based on his experience growing up as the son of Armenian immigrants in California. Saroyan is known for his exuberant style and his insight into human nature.

1 Think and say.1 Is the first day of school easy for children?2 How do they feel on that day?2 Read the story. THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL by William Saroyan

He was a little boy named Jim, the first and only child of Dr Louis Davy, 717 Mattei Building, and it was his first day at school. His father was French, a small heavy-set man of forty whose boyhood had been full of poverty and unhappiness and ambition. His mother was dead: she died when Jim was born, and the only woman he knew intimately was Amy, the Swedish housekeeper. It was Amy who dressed him in his Sunday clothes, and took him to school. Jim liked Amy, but he didn’t like her taking him to school. He told her so. All the way to school he told her so. I don’t like you, he said. I don’t like you any more. I like you, the housekeeper said.He had taken walks with Amy before, once all the way to the Court House Park for the Sunday afternoon band concert, but this walk to school was different. What for? he said. Everybody must go to school, the housekeeper said. Did you go to school? he said. No, said Amy. Then why do I have to go? he said.

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You will like it, said the housekeeper.He walked on with her in silence, holding her hand. I don’t like you, he said. I don’t like you any more. I like you, said Amy. Then why are you taking me to school? he asked again. Why?The housekeeper knew how frightened a little boy could be about going to school. You will like it, she said. I think you will sing songs and play games. I don’t want to, he said. I will come and get you every afternoon, she said. I don’t like you, he told her again.She felt very unhappy about the little boy going to school, but she knew that he would have to go. The school building was very ugly to her and the boy. She didn’t like the way it made her feel, and going up the steps with him she wished he didn’t have to go to school. The halls and rooms scared her, and him, and the smell of the place too. And he didn’t like Mr Barber, the principal. Amy despised Mr Barber. What’s the name of your son? Mr Barber said. This is Dr Louis Davy’s son, said Amy. His name is Jim. I am Dr Davy’s housekeeper. James? said Mr Barber. Not James, said Amy, just Jim. All right, said Mr Barber. Any middle name? No,said Amy. He is too small for a middle name. Just Jim Davy. All right, said Mr Barber. We’ll try him out in the first grade. If he doesn’t get along all right we’ll try him out in the kindergarten. Dr Davy said to start him in the first grade, said Amy. Not kindergarten. All right, said Mr Barber.The housekeeper knew how frightened the little boy was, sitting on the chair, and she tried to let him know how much she loved him and how sorry she was about everything. She wanted to say something fine to him about everything, but she couldn’t say anything, and she was very proud of the nice way he got down from the chair and stood beside Mr

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Barber, waiting to go with him to a classroom On the way home she was so proud of him she began to cry.Miss Binney, the teacher of the first grade, was an old lady who was all dried out. The room was full of little boys and girls. School smelled strange and sad. He sat at a desk and listened carefully. He heard some of the names: Charles, Ernest, Alvin, Norman, Betty, Hannah, Juliet, Viola, Polly. He listened carefully and heard Miss Binney say, Hannah Winter, what are you chewing? And he saw Hannah Winter blush. He liked Hannah Winter right from the beginning. Gum, said Hannah. Put it in the waste-basket, said Miss Binney.He saw the little girl walk to the front of the class, take the gum from her mouth, and drop it into the waste-basket. And he heard Miss Binney say, Ernest Gaskin, what are you chewing? Gum, said Ernest.And he liked Ernest Gaskin too. They met in the schoolyard and Ernest taught him a few jokes.Amy was in the hall when school ended. She was sullen and angry at everybody until she saw the little boy. She was amazed that he wasn’t changed, that he wasn’t hurt, or perhaps utterly unalive, murdered. The school and everything about it frightened her very much. She took his hand and walked out of the building with him, feeling angry and proud. Jim said, What comes after twenty-nine? Thirty, said Amy. Your face is dirty, he said.His father was very quiet at the supper table. What comes after twenty-nine? The boy said. Thirty, said his father. Your face is dirty, he said.In the morning he asked his father for a nickel. What do you want a nickel for? his father said. Gum, he said.His father gave him a nickel and on the way to school he stopped at Mrs Riley’s store and bought a package of Spearmint. Do you want a piece? he asked Amy. Do you want to give me a piece? the housekeeper said.

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Jim thought about for a moment, and then said, Yes. Do you like me? said the housekeeper. I like you, said Jim. Do you like me? Yes, said the housekeeper. Do you like school?Jim didn’t know for sure, bur he knew he liked the part about gum. And Hannah Winter. And Ernest Gaskin. I don’t know, he said. Do you sing? asked the housekeeper. No, we don’t sing, he said. Do you play games? she said. Not in the school, he said. In the yard we do. He liked the part about gum very much. Miss Binney said, Jim Davy, what are you chewing? Ha ha ha, he thought. Gum, he said.He walked to the waste-basket and back to his seat, and Hannah Winter saw him, and Ernest Gaskin too. That was the best part of school. It began to grow too. Ernest Gaskin, he shouted in the schoolyard, what are you chewing? Raw elephant meat, said Ernest Gaskin. Jim Davy, what are you chewing?Jim tried to think of something very funny to be chewing, but he couldn’t. Gum, he said, and Ernest Gaskin laughed louder than Jim laughed when Ernest Gaskin said raw elephant meat. It was funny no matter what you said. Going back to the classroom Jim saw Hannah Winter in the hall. Hannah Winter, he said, what in the world are you chewing?The little girl was startled. She wanted to say something nice that would honestly show how nice she felt about having Jim say her name and ask her the funny question, making fun of school, but she couldn’t think of anything that nice to say because they were almost in the room and there wasn’t time enough. Tutti-frutti, she said with desperate haste.It seemed to Jim he had never before heard such a glorious word, and he kept repeating the word to himself all day. Amy Larson, he said, what, are, you, chewing?

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He told his father all about it at the supper table. He said, once there was a hill. On the hill there was a mill. Under the mill there was a walk. Under the walk there was the key. What is it? I don’t know, his father said. What is it? Milwaukee, said the boy.The housekeeper was delighted. Mill. Walk. Key, Jim said. Tutti-frutti. What’s that? said his father. Gum, he said. The kind Hannah Winter chews. Who’s Hannah Winter? said the father. She’s in my room, he said. Oh, said his father.After supper he sat on the floor with the small red and blue and yellow top that hummed while it spinned. It was all right, he guessed. It was still very sad, but the gum part of it was very funny and the Hannah Winter part very nice. Raw elephant meat, he thought with great inward delight. Raw elephant meat, he said to his father who was reading the evening paper. His father folded the paper and sat on the floor beside him. The housekeeper saw them together on the floor and for some reason tears came to her eyes. COMPREHENSION CHECK1 What do you learn about Jim’s family?2 How does Jim feel about starting school? Why?3 How does Amy feel about Jim’s starting school? Why?4 What did Jim learn from the other children in school?5 What happens at the end of the story? What is Amy’s reaction?

SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS1 Did Dr. Davy pay much attention to his son?2 What characters in the story change? In what way do they change?3 Do you remember your first day of school?4 Who brought you to school on the 1st of September?5 Do you have photos shot on that day? What and who can be seen in them?6 How did you feel among new surroundings?

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7 With whom did you share your impressions about your starting school?8 How did your family feel about your starting school?

CONTENT VOCABULARY1 Match the words on the left with those close in meaning enlisted on the right.intimate- joyinward- magnificentdelight- close and familiar utterly- to frightenglorious- to go roundto spin- completelyto scare- inner

2 Complete the statements below with the words from the list. Change the form of verbs if the grammar requires it.amazed delighted diefrightened funny get alongon the way proud try outway wish 1 Amy is the housekeeper who takes care of Jim because his mother __________ when he was born. Amy never went to school and seemed more ___________ of the school than five-year-old Jim.2 Amy didn’t like the _________ the school made her feel, and she __________ that Jim didn’t have to go to school at all.3 She didn’t like the principal either, but like a mother she was _________ that Jim behaved well in his office.4 Jim was only five, but his father wanted him in first grade, so the principal agreed to _______ him _______ in first grade. If he ________okay, he could stay there. If not, he would go into kindergarten.5 It didn’t take Jim long to begin to make friends and learn some jokes from them. Soon everything the children did or said seemed _________, especially chewing raw elephant meat.

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6 Jim stopped at Mrs.Riley’s store ___________ to school and bought a package of spearmint gum because Miss Binney didn’t allow the children to chew gum in class.7 When Jim came out of school, Amy was __________ to see he was OK because she was sure something bad had happened to him.8 She felt better that night and was __________ with the jokes that Jim told at the supper table.

WRITINGAsk your parents about the way they felt about your first day of school. Write a short paragraph on it.

SELECTION TWO

BEFORE READING.This selection is an article about a real family. It originally appeared in Reader’s Digest.1 Think and say:1 At what stage in life do children most appreciate their parents? Why?2 Read the title and the preview of the article.What kind of influence on the author did his mother have?2 Read the article by N.Michelotti.

MOTHER WAS REALLY SOMETHING She challenged us to succeed – and then showed us the way. by Joseph N.Michelotti, M.D.

In June 1976, I graduated from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. When my name was called, I walked quickly across the stage and reached for my diploma. But before the medical school dean handed me the certificate, he asked my parents, Anna and Carlo Michelotti, to stand. Surprised, they rose from their seats in the audience. They looked at each other and seemed puzzled. The dean told the crowd that my parents, an immigrant Italian couple from a farm outside Chicago, had managed to send their six children to top colleges

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and graduate schools. (Three of us would become doctors, two were already lawyers and one was a physicist.) “It’s remarkable,” the dean said. Everyone cheered loudly. Mamma’s face was radiant with pride. I knew that everything we had achieved or would achieve was because of my parents. When we were young children, my mother, especially, was our mentor. Not until I became an adult did I realize how special she was. DELIGHT IN DEVOTION. My mother was born in a small town in northern Italy. She was three when her parents immigrated to this country in 1926. They lived on Chicago’s South Side, where my grandfather worked making ice cream. Mama thrived in the hectic urban environment. At 16, she graduated first in her high-school class, went on to secretarial school, and finally worked as an executive secretary for a railroad company. She was beautiful too. When a local photographer used her pictures in his monthly window display, she was flattered. Her favorite portrait showed her sitting by Lake Michigan, her hair windblown, her gaze reaching toward the horizon. My mother always used to say that when you died, God gave you back your “best self.” She’d show us that picture and say, ”This is what I’m going to look like in heaven.” My parents were married in 1944. Dad was a quiet and intelligent man who was 17 when he left Italy. Soon after, a hit-and-run accident left him with a permanent limp. Dad worked hard selling candy to Chicago office workers on their break. He had little formal schooling. His English was self-taught. Yet he eventually built a small, successful wholesale candy business. Dad was generous, handsome and deeply religious. Mama was devoted to him. After she married, my mother quit her job and gave herself to her family. In 1950, with three small children, Dad moved the family to a farm 40 miles from Chicago. He worked the land and commuted to the city to run his business. Mama said good-bye to her parents and friends and traded her busy city neighborhood for a more isolated life. But she never complained. By 1958, our modest white farmhouse was filled with six children, and mother was delighted. “THINK BIG.” My mother never studied books on parenting. Yet she knew how to raise children. She heightened our self-esteem and

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helped us reach our potential. One fall day, I sat at the kitchen table while Mama peeled potatoes. She spied Dad out the window of his tractor and smiled. “Your father has accomplished so much,” she said proudly. “He is really somebody.” My mother wanted each of us to be somebody too. “Your challenge is to be everything you can. Mine is to help,” she always said. She read to us every day and used homemade flash cards to teach us phonics. She bolstered our confidence, praising even our most ordinary accomplishments. When I was ten, I painted a stack of wooden crates and nailed them together to make a wobbly bookcase. “It’s wonderful!” Mama exclaimed. “Just what we need.” She used it for many years. In the dining room are two paint-by-number pictures that my sister Gloria and brother Leo did as kids. Several years ago, Leo commented that the pictures were not very good and offered to take them down. But mother wouldn’t hear of it. “they are there to remind you how much you could accomplish even as children,” she said. From the very beginning, she urged us to think big. One day, after visiting our grandparents on the South Side, she made Dad detour past the Prudential Building construction site. Mama explained that when finished, the 41-story building would be the Chicago’s tallest. “Maybe someday one of you can design a building like that,” she said. Her confidence in us was infectious. When my sister Carla was 12, she announced she was going to be a lawyer. “you can do that,” Mama said. “You can do anything you put your mind to”. TOUR GUIDE.To Mama, education was a blueprint for success. Four of us went to a nearby, one-room schoolhouse. My mother made up for its shortcomings by getting us educational toys, talking to us about history, politics and current events, and helping with homework. The best part of getting a good report card was her unstinting praise. When I was in third grade, she urged our teacher to organize a trip to Chicago museums. My mother helped the teacher rent a bus and plan the trip. She even served as tour guide, pointing out landmarks and recounting local history. When it came time to think about college, there was never a question that we’d all go. Inspired by our parents’ sacrifice, we studied hard to earn scholarships, and applied for grants and financial aid. We also took jobs to earn money for school. Working

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in a grocery store, I learned the value of a dollar. “Work is blessing.” Mama always reminded us. She never asked for anything for herself. “You don’t have to buy me a birthday present,” she said one time. “instead write me a letter about yourself. Tell me about your life. Is there anything worrying you? Are you happy?” “YOU HONOR US ALL” My mother made family values and pride tangible. One time when I was a high-school junior, our school put on a production of The Music Man. My role was totally insignificant. I played bass in the orchestra. “You don’t have to come and see me,” I told Mama. “I am not doing anything important.” “Nonsense,” she said. “Of course we are coming, and we are coming because you are in the program.” The whole family showed up. The next year when I was elected president of my high school’s National Honor Society, my mother pulled Michael and Maria, my younger brother and sister, out of grade school and brought them to the ceremony. Other students’ parents came to the event. But I was the only one with a brother and sister there. “Everything you do reflects on the family,” Mama explained. “If you succeed, you honor us all.” In the same way, she crowded us all around the kitchen table for breakfast and supper. She made sure we shared chores. She nurtured our religious faith, which kept our family close. Every Sunday, we filled a pew at church. At night, we knelt together in the living room and prayed. My mother suggested games everyone could play and often joined us. TIME FOR EVERYONE. Success was not just making money, Mama always said. Success was doing something positive for others. In 1977, when Leo received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Irvine, my mother wrote him a long, warm letter. She praised his years of hard work and, typically, reminded him to use his education to help others. “To think, you have the knowledge to work for the betterment of mankind!” she stressed. My mother was the driving influence in my decision to become a physician. “Do good’ she always said – “and be there for others”. I recall a long difficult night when I was a resident at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I hadn’t slept much for days. Finally, one morning at around four o’clock, I dropped into a restless slumber. An hour later,

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I awoke with a jolt. I had dreamed my father died. Confused and exhausted, I called home in tears. “Everything is all right,” my mother assured me. “ Don’t worry.” At six o’clock, the hospital security buzzed my room. I had visitors. Stumbling into the elevator, I wondered who had come to see me at that hour. There stood my parents. They had gotten up and driven into the city in the predawn darkness. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Mama said, sleepy-eyed and anxious. VIEW FROM ABOVE While my mother’s spirit remained indomitable, her health turned poor. Early last year, she had major surgery. Complications developed. Eight days later, on January 31, 1990, Mama died suddenly. She was 66. More than 200 people came to her funeral. In his eulogy, Leo said, “ Mama poured her life out for us, reserving nothing for herself, thinking of us always, of herself never.” Sitting in the church, I could picture my mother in heaven, looking young and beautiful just as she did in her favorite photograph. But instead of gazing out over Lake Michigan, she would be looking down at us, her six children. And she would be bursting with pride. But we were the proud ones – proud of her and all she accomplished. More than any of us, Mama was really somebody.

COMPREHENSION CHECK

1 Answer the questions:

1 Who is telling the story? What is the author by diploma?2 Where did most of events take place?3 What years are depicted in the story?4 What are the important facts in the early lives of Anna and Carlo Michelotti? What were their early successes?5 What kind of person was each parent? What talents did each have?6 What was family life like in the Michelotti family?7 Did mother know how to raise children?

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2 Reread the article and list the lessons that mother tried to teach her children and the things she thought were important.

3 Check your ability to remember:1 How many children were there in the family?2 What were their names?3 What professions were popular among the Michelottis’ children?4 Can you comment on the years below giving a list of events in the Michelotti family?

1976 - 1958 –1926 - 1977 - 1944 - 1990 1950 –

SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS

1 What fact or statement from the article impressed you most?2 What do you think Anna Michelotti means by “work is a blessing”?3 What lessons are there to be learned from the Michelotti family?4 Why do you think Joseph Michelotti wrote this article?5 What do you appreciate about your parents? What are your family values?6 What lessons have you learned from your parents? Can you give a specific example of how they taught you the lesson?7 What do “success” and “being somebody” mean to you?

CONTENT VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR FUNCTIONS1 Find in the text synonyms to the following words: to appear - doctor - to offer – guard(n) - to give – look(n) - unlimited – instructor - improvement - surroundings – confused – to succeed in - constant- real –

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2 Guess the words from the article by their definitions.1 being or acting as a father and a mother 2 to travel regularly some distance, as from a suburb into a city and back 3 praise in honor of a deceased person 4 a failure, defect 5 characterized by confused or hurried activity 6 inclined to one side and to the other when not properly balanced (eulogy, shortcoming, wobbly, hectic, parenting, to commute)

3 Try to remember the following compound words in their original context:railroad windblown farmhouse grandparents blueprint scholarshiplandmark shortcoming birthday schoolhouse wholesaleself-taught self-esteem good-bye hit-and-run one-roomhigh-school paint-by-number sleepy-eyed

4 Replace the verbs in italics with the ones close in meaning:1 They seemed puzzled.2 Not until I became an adult did I realize how special she was.3 He built a small, successful wholesale candy business.4 My mother quit her job.5 Leo offered to take the pictures down.6 My mother pulled Michael and Maria, my younger brother and sister, out of grade school.7 She crowded us all around the kitchen table for breakfast and supper.8 Her health turned poor.

5 Derive adjectives from the nouns below:infection- secretary -month- execution -religion- type-remark- anxiety -wood- locality –

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6 Fill in the blanks with proper prepositions:

1 She read _____ us every day.2 Her confidence ____ us was infectious.3 They had driven _____ the city ____ the predawn darkness.4 Everything you do reflects ____ the family.5 Leo received his Ph.D. ____ physics.6 I walked quickly _____ the stage and reached ___ my diploma.7 They rose ____ their seats.8 The whole family showed ____.9 ___16, she graduated first in her high-school class, went on ____ secretarial school, and finally worked ____an executive secretary ____ a railroad company.10 ____ 1958, our modest white farmhouse was filled _____ six children.11 Dad moved the family ____ a farm 40 miles _____ Chicago.12 ___Mama, education was a blueprint ___ success.13 She never asked ____ anything ____ herself.14 She even served ___ a tour guide.15 I learned the value ____ a dollar.

7 Complete the following statements with words from the list. Change the form of verbs if the grammar or the sentence requires it:

achieve chores complain manage mentor praise proud raise reach success

1 After getting married, Anna Michelotti traded big city life in Chicago for a more isolated life in the country, but she never _____________.2 She really knew how to ___________children and dedicated her life to them.3 She knew she should ______________ her children’s accomplishments, big or small.4 She gave her children __________ to do so they shared the work of the family.

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5 Mama was a guide or ___________ for her children. She helped them___________ their potential. She taught them that ______________in life does not come from accumulating riches but from doing something to other people.6 Anna and Carlo Michelotti worked hard and _____________ to send their six children to top colleges and graduate schools. They were_________ of their children and all that they ______________.

8 Read the sentences below and say if the italicized words function as nouns, verbs, or adjectives:

1 Parents usually sacrifice a lot for their children, but children don’t always appreciate their parents’ sacrifices.2 In the Michelotti family, every child did his own or her share of the work. Mama taught her children to share the chores.3 Joseph Michelotti wrote this article as an adult. It is written from the point of view of an adult child.4 Mama challenged her children to succeed. She said, ”Your challenge is to be everything you can.”5 Mama knew how to parent; she was a good parent.6 Joseph Michelotti went to a top medical school. We do not know if he graduated at the top of his class.7 A photographer used Mama’s picture in a window display. After her death, Joseph pictured his mother in heaven.8 Carlo Michelotti had a limp. He limped because he had been hit by a car.9 When the children succeeded, they brought honor to the family. Mama said, “ If you succeed, you honor us all.”

WRITING

Write a paragraph on - the way your relationships with parents have changed with time. - things that make you feel proud of your parents. - achievements you have gained thanks to your parents.

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SELECTION THREE

BEFORE READING“Excavating Rachael’s Room” is an essay selected from “Old Songs in a New Café” by Robert James Waller. Robert James Waller (1939) is an American writer also known for his work as a photographer and musician. Several of his books have been on the New York Times bestseller list. Two of his novels have been made into motion pictures. R.J.Waller received his Ph.D. in business in 1968. Later he taught and was dean of the business school

1 Think and say.1 Do you live with your parents or at the students’ dormitory?2 Would you like to stay on your own like most of the students in the USA do?3 Do young people need this sort of independence? What for?4 Do you depend on your parents much? 5 Do your parents support you ? In what way?6 If you live separately, do you miss your family?7 Whom and what do you miss most?8 Does your family miss you?

2 Read the essay by R.J.Waller

EXCAVATING RACHAEL’S ROOM by Robert James Waller

Like some rumpled alien army awaiting marching orders, the brown trash bags hunker down on the patio in a column of twos. A hard little caravan are they, resting in sunlight and shadow and caring not for their cargos, the sweepings of childhood and beyond. With her eighteenth birthday near, Rachael has moved to Boston, leaving her room and the cleaning of it to us. After conducting a one-family attempt at turning United Parcel Service into something resembling North American Van Lines, we gather by the front door early on a Sunday morning. Beside the suitcases are stacked six boxes, taped and tied. In my innocence, I tap the topmost box and ask, “What are these?”

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“That’s the stuff I couldn’t get into my suitcases last night; you guys can send it to me,” she replies, rummaging through her purse. Out of habit, I begin a droning lecture on planning ahead, realize the futility of it, and I am quiet. She has a deep caring for the animals and purposely, we know, avoids saying good-bye to them, particularly the small female cat acquired during her stay at camp one summer, years ago. The cat has shared her bed, has been her confident and has greeted her in the afternoons when she returned from school. Good-bye would be too much, would bring overpowering tears, would destroy the blithe air of getting on with it she is trying hard to preserve. We watch her walk across the apron of the Waterloo airport, clutching her ticket, and she disappears into the funny little Air Wisconsin plane. Turning, just as she left the departure lounge, she grinned and flashed the peace sign. I was all right until then, but with that last insouciant gesture, so typical of her, the poignancy of the moment is driven home and tears come. We hurry outside and stand in hot sunlight to see the plane leave. I note that we have never done this before, for anyone. Clinging to the heavy fence wire along the airport boundary, I watch the plane take off to the west and make a last allegoric circle over Cedar Falls. East she travels and is gone, disappearing in the haze of an Iowa summer. Back home, beer in hand, we sit on the porch, listening to the hickory nuts fall, recounting the failures and remembering the triumphs. For the 500 th time in the last eighteen years, we describe to each other the night of her birth, how she looked coming down the hall in the Bloomington, Indiana, hospital on the gurney in her mother’s arms. How we felt, how we feel, what we did and didn’t do. We take a few days off, just to get used to the idea of there being only two of us again. Then, tentatively, we push open the door to her room. The dogs peer into the darkness from around our legs and look up at us. The room – well – undulates. It stands as a shrine to questionable

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taste, a paean to the worst of American consumerism. The last few echoes of Def Leppard and Twisted Sister are barely audible. Georgia sighs. I suggested flame throwers coupled with a front-end loader and caution the cleaning crew, which now includes the two cats, about a presence over in one of the corners. Faintly, I can hear it rustle and snarl. It is, I propose, some furry guardian of teenage values, and senses, correctly, that we are enemies. Trash bags in hand, we start at the door and work inward, tough- minded. “My god, look at this stuff; let’s toss it all.” The first few hours are easy. Half-empty shampoo bottles go into the bags, along with three dozen hair curlers, four dozen dried-up ball pens and uncountable pictures of bare-chested young men with contorted faces clawing at strange-looking guitars. Farther into the room salvage appears: the hammer that disappeared years ago; about six bucks in change; 50 percent of the family’s towel and drinking-glass stock; five sets of keys to the Toyota. More. Good stuff. We work with a vengeance. Moving down through the layers. Though, we begin to undergo a transformation. Slowly, we change from rough-and-rumble scavengers to gentle archeologists. Perhaps it started when we reached the level of the dolls and stuffed animals. Maybe it was when I found “The Man Who Never Washed His Dishes,” a morality play in a dozen or so pages, with her childhood scribblings in it. In any case, tough-mindedness has turned to drippy sentimentality by the time we find the tack and one shoe from Bill, her horse. I had demanded that Bill be sold when he was left unridden after the five years of an intense love affair with him were over. That was hard on her, I know. I begin to understand just how hard when Georgia discovers a bottle of horsefly repellent that she kept for her memories. We hold up treasures and call to each other. “Look at this, do you remember . . .?”

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And there’s Barbie. And Barbie’s clothes. And Barbie’s camper in which the young female cat was given grand tours of the house, even though she would have preferred not to travel at all, thank you. My ravings about the sexist glorification of middle-class values personified by Barbie seem stupid and hollow in retrospect, as I devilishly look at the cat and wonder if she still fits in the camper. “Here kitty, kitty. . .” Ken is not in sight. Off working out on the Nautilus equipment, I suppose. Or studying tax shelters. Ah, the long-handled net with which Iowa nearly was cleared of fireflies for a time. “I know they look pretty in the bottle, Sweetheart, but they will die if you keep them there all night.” Twister – The Game That Ties You Up in Knots. The ball glove. She was pretty decent at first base. And the violin. Jim Welch’s school orchestra was one of the best parts of her growing years. She smiles to us from a homecoming picture, the night of her first real date. Thousands of rocks and seashells. The little weaving loom on which she fashioned pot holders for entire neighborhoods. My resolve is completely gone as I rescue Snoopy’s pennant from the flapping jaws of a trash bag and set it to one side for keeping. We are down to small keepsakes and jewelry. Georgia takes over, not trusting my eye for value, and sorts the precious from the junk, while I shuffle through old algebra papers. Night after night, for a year, I sat with her at the kitchen table, failing to convince her of the beauty to be found in quadratic equations and other abstractions. I goaded her with Waller’s Conjecture: “Life is a word problem.” Blank stare. Finally, trying to wave hope in the face of defeat, I paraphrased Fran Lebowiz: “In the real world, there is no algebra.” She nodded, smiling, and laughed when I admitted that not once, in all my travels, had I ever calculated how long Smith would need to overtake Brown if Brown left three hours before Smith on a slower train. I told her I’d sit in the bar and wait for Smith’s faster train. That confirmed what she had heretofore only suspected – algebra is not needed for the abundant life, only fast trains and good whiskey. And, she was right, of course. The job is nearly finished. All that remains is a bit of archiving.

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I have strange feelings, though. Have we sorted carefully enough? Probably. Georgia is thorough about that kind of thing. Still, I walk to the road again and look at the pile. The tailings of one quarter of a life stacked up in three dozen bags. It seems like there ought to be more. When I hear the garbage truck, I peer out of an upstairs window in her room. The garbage guys have seen lives strung out along road edges before and are not moved. The cruncher on the truck grinds hair curlers and Twister and junk jewelry and broken stuffed animals – and some small part of me. She calls from Boston. A job. Clerking in a store, and she loves it. We are pleased and proud of her. She’s under way. The weeks go by. Letters. “I am learning to budget my money. I hate it. I want to be rich.” She starts her search for the Dream in a rooming house downtown and finds a Portuguese boyfriend, Tommy, who drums in a rock band and cooks Chinese for her. Ella Fitzgerald sings a free concert in the park. The cop on the beat knows her, and the store is crowded with returning college kids late in a Boston summer. Here in the woods, it’s quieter now. Her room has been turned into a den. A computer replaces curling irons and other clutter on the desk. My pinstripes look cheerless in her closet where pink fishnet tops and leather pants once hung. Order has replaced life. I sit quietly there and hear the laughter, the crying, the reverberation of a million phone calls. The angst of her early-teen existential crisis lingers, drifting in a small cloud near the high ceiling. And you know what I miss? Coming home and hearing her say,”Looking pretty good, Bob! Got your suspenders on?” She could make a whirring sound just like the motor drive of a fine camera. Those few moments of irreverent hassle every day are what I miss most of all. Regrets? A few. I wish I had walked in the woods more with her. I wish I had gotten mad less and laughed longer. Maybe we could have kept the horse another year. Victories? A few. She loves the music and the animals. She understands romance and knows how to live a romantic life. She also

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has the rudimentary skills of a great blackjack dealer. I sent her off with that instead of luggage. She has her own agenda. She’s had it for years. It’s not my agenda, not what I would choose, but then she has more courage than I do. She’s out there on her own, cooking on a hot plate in a Boston rooming house, pushing and shoving and working and discovering. My respect for her escalates. She’s going to be all right. And I know I’ll sit on the porch as autumn comes this year and other years, in some old sweater with some old dreams, and wonder where she goes and how she goes. I hope she goes where there’s laughter and romance, and walks the streets of Bombay and leans out of Paris windows to touch falling January snow and swims in the seas off Bora Bora and makes love in Bangkok in the Montien Hotel. I hope she plays blackjack all night in the Barbary Coast and, money ahead, watches the sun come up in Vegas. I hope she rides the big planes out of Africa and Jakarta and feels what’s like to turn for home just ahead of winter. Go well, Rachael Elizabeth, my daughter. And, go knowing that your ball glove hangs on the wall beside mine, that Snoopy’s pennant flies bravely in the old airs of your room, that the violin is safe, and that the little cat now sleeps with us at night but still sits on the porch railing in the late afternoon and looks for you. COMPREHENSION CHECK1 Who is the narrator? Why did he write this essay?2 What is the format of the essay?3 Why is the essay entitled “Excavating Rachael’s Room”?4 Are there many people involved in the story?

SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS

1 Did R.J.Waller write the essay rather for himself than for his daughter?2 What do you think about R.J.Waller as a father? 3 What do you think about him as a narrator?

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4 Did you smile when reading the essay? Did the story itself or the way it was told make you smile?5 What can you say about the language and the style R.J.Waller offers the readers?6 Why does the narrator use so many details? 7 Reread the essay to find examples of inversion, one or two word sentences and reiteration (repetition). What do they add up to the story?8 Can we say that R.J.Waller is a master to combine emotions and sentimentality with humor and irony? Give the most vivid examples of such combinations.9 What does the author really mean when he says: “… furry guardian of teenage values …”; “… tough-mindedness has turned to drippy sentimentality …”; “ The cruncher on the truck grinds …some small part of me.”; “ I rescue Snoopy’s pennant from the jaws of a trash bag…”; “ She starts her search for the Dream in a rooming house downtown…” ? 10 What did father teach his daughter ? 11 Can you play blackjack? Who taught you to play it? 12 What passage of the essay impressed you most? Read and explain. 13 What is the essay really about?

CONTENT VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR FUNCTIONS

1 Match the words on the left with those on the right in the way they go in the text: trash archaeologists morality guardian rudimentary truck quadratic house garbage loom weaving values stuffed scribblings childhood equations

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furry skills teenage play gentle bag rooming animals

2 Below is the list of verbs used in the text. Use your body language to illustrate the following verbal activities:

to push, to shove, to toss, to shuffle, to stack, to grind, to clutch, to nod, to claw, to rummage, to escalate, to cling to peer, to stare.

Now make your classmates guess the verb(activity) you show.

3 Can you practice sound imitation of the verbs? to rustle, to snarl, to sigh

4 Explain the meaning of the words below by means of synonyms or descriptions. Use the dictionary if necessary.allegoric- rudimentary –audible- haze(n)- blithe- futility-questionable- in retrospect-

5 Guess the words from the essay through their definitions:1 Goods carried in a ship, aircraft or other vehicle. 2 Song of thanksgiving, praise or triumph .3 The saving of property from loss( by fire or other disaster); property so saved. 4 A list of things to be done, business to be discussed; a set of operations which form a procedure for solving a problem 5 A flat, padded table or stretcher with legs and wheels for transporting patients or bodies. 6 A gambling game of cards, in which a player needs to get more points to win, but not more than 21. 7 An animal’s hidden home. 8 A pair of straps worn over the shoulders to keep up trousers.

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9 A substance that keeps away insects.10 Any structure or place devoted to some saint, holy person, or deity, as an altar, chapel, church, or the like. ( agenda, suspenders, shrine, blackjack, repellent, cargo, den, salvage, gurney, paean)

6 Fill in the blanks with proper prepositions:1 She has a deep caring _____ the animals.2 I watch the plane to take _____ to the west.3 We change _____ rough-and-tumble scavengers _____ gentle archaeologists.4 “The Man Who Never Washed His Dishes” is a morality play _____ a dozen or so pages.5 Twister is the game that ties you up _____ knots.6 Night _____ night, I sat with her ____ the kitchen table.7 We are pleased and proud ____ her.8 Her room has been turned _____ a den.9 The little cat still sits ____ the porch railing ____ the late afternoon and looks _____ you.

WRITINGWrite a paragraph about - things your parents have taught you;- things you would like to teach your own kids;- the way your own agenda differs from your parents’ agenda;- things you would like “to borrow” from Rachael’s life.

SELECTION FOUR

BEFORE READING1 Think and say.1 How do parents feel when there children grow up and live their parents’ house? What are their biggest worries?2 What kind of experience can both parents and children gain when they stay separately?

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2 Read two abstracts and a poem written by parents to their children. But as she’d grown as a daughter, so I’d grown as a father, and learnt to bury away my wishful images of her, and to watch her take charge, naturally enough, of her own directions and to develop her own independence and will. So what I’d got now was not the compliant doll of a father’s fancy, but a glowing girl with a dazzling and complicated personality, one with immense energy in chasing both happiness and despair, and who expressed her love for me, as always, not in secret half-smiles and the sharing of silences, but in noisy shouts, jolly punches, sharp jabs to the stomach, and a lively burying of teeth in arms and earlobes. Certainly she had become no dad’s soft shadow, nor ever she would be now. She was existing on a different scale to my first fond imaginings. She had become herself – a normal jeans-clad, horse-riding, pop-swinging, guitar-bashing adolescent with a huge appetite for the lustier pleasures of life. Not at all what I planned or what I expected, but I know I didn’t wish her changed. Laurie Lee, from “Two Women”

TO TERI, LEAVING HOME When the day comes for your child to leave home, you want them to be able to say, “Mom, I’m ready! I can do it, Mom! I’m going to fly on my own.” … You are ready to go, Teri. I assure you you can fly. It is time for you to do it. I don’t think it was wrong for you to leave, I only wish you had chosen another way to do it … You have mountains to climb – without me. I don’t even know your world, I don’t know your mountains. You have my love. You have my support and encouragement. You have me believing you can do what you want to do – whatever it is. That’s all I can give you now. I’ve done the best I could do as your mother. I know I’ve failed you sometimes, it is unavoidable in raising a

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human being – especially when you are only a human being yourself, and you are still climbing your own mountains. The best thing you can do is believe in yourself. Don’t be afraid to try. Don’t be afraid to fail …Just dust yourself off and try again … My love and thoughts go with you. My first child. My daughter. Love, MOM Judy Green Herbstreit, from a letter to her daughter, 1979

IF by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied, don’t deal in lies.Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master, If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken. And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,

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And so hold when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And- which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son.

READING COMPREHENSION AND SHARING THOUGHTS1 To whom is each piece you have read addressed?2 When and why did parents write to their children? What discoveries did they make about their children and themselves?3 Why is “If” by R. Kipling sometimes called « a testament »?4 What do all three pieces have in common with the previous selection (“Excavating Rachael’s Room by R.J.Waller)?5 Do you know what “generation gap” is? Do you have it in your family?

SELECTION FIVE

BEFORE READING1Think and say: 1 What makes a good marriage? 2 Are compromise and tolerance important for people in marriage?2 Read another essay by R.J.Waller.

SLOW WALTZ FOR GEORGIA ANN by Robert James Waller

I hear the slap of the clay as you work, late in the night. And I know you are there in your studio, in bib overalls, an old sweater, and heavy work shoes. Soon your wheel will begin to turn in time with

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some faint and distant music, and the teapots and lamps and goblets will lift effortlessly from nothing more than moistened earth. So the night wind moves the trees outside, and I remember you from a college-town party hall. Twenty-eight years ago now. Through the smoke and across the tables we were taken with each other from the start. An enchanted evening. Our own private cliché. The sort of thing people don’t believe in anymore. And then years later I watch you. Coming toward me on your dancer’s walk through the early twilight of high-plateau India. Your sari is silk, and blue above your sandals, your earrings are gold and dangling long. Heads above bodies in white wicker chairs along the veranda of the West End Hotel turn as you pass. Your already dark skin has been made even darker from our days in the Bangalore sun, and there are speculations about you. An Indian man asks, “Is she Moroccan?” “No,” I reply. “She is Iowan.” I take another beer from the refrigerator, hoping you stay in your studio a while longer. I want to sit here by myself, listening to the muffled sounds of your hands at work, and think what it means to be married to you for twenty-five years. In another month, it will have been that long. I grew up dreaming of rivers and music and ancient cities and dark-haired women who sang old songs in cafes along the Seine. You were raised to be a wife and a beauty, and you probably would have been satisfied, maybe happier, with a more conventional man. At least it took you a long time to discover what I am up to and to know this race I run, a race between death and discovery. You were plainly discomfited by my lurching from one passion to another, from basketball to music, from the academy to think tanks, from city to city, from the solitude of my study to the dark bars where I am at home with my instruments. Early on, with me dancing along early morning beaches and feeding my demons, it was clear that you would need a life of your own if this marriage were to flourish. That was your hardest struggle. It almost broke us apart. But you found something in the clay, something that quietly said, “This is me.”

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And I knew we had won when the woman at the cocktail party gushed: “Oh, you must be the potter’s husband!” Inside of me at that moment, I shouted in celebrations. Not for myself, or even for us, but for you. Chrysalis had died, you had become. Now the potter’s work and the potter’s trade keep you centered like the clay. Love? I cannot analyze that. It is of a piece. Taken apart, it becomes something else, and the gull-like melody that is ours disappears. But even in our difficult times, times when we took suitcases from closet shelves and stared at each other in anger, love was there. Liking is another matter. I can get a hold on that. Most of all, I think, I like you for the good-natured understanding you worked so hard to acquire, even if that understanding sometimes borders on wavering tolerance. You understand the need to live with old furniture and rusted cars and rough wooden floors and vacuum cleaners that don’t vacuum, so that a little money will be there when I yell over the side of the loft, “Let’s go to Paris!” Remember the time I was in graduate school and we had less than $100 in the bank, when I considered trading our doddering Volkswagen for a guitar? You crinkled your face, looked serious, and said, with no hint of scold, “How can we get to the grocery store?” You said only that. And I was grateful. You tolerate one side of the living room stacked with music equipment, while my canoe full of camping gear and two cats tenants the other side, stretching from one corner over to where it inelegantly mingles with an amplifier, several microphone stands, and old suitcases full of cords and other necessary truck. I am working on the gunnels and mumbling about river maps I can’t find and rotten weather and wizards I am going out to search for. Over dinner, you smile softly and ask, “How long do you think the canoe will be in the living room?” The point is made. I will move it out tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. You are older now. I can see that if I look hard. But I don’t. I have always seen you in the soft focus. I see you standing in the winter on a great stretch of deserted beach in the Netherlands Antilles brushing your long and freshly washed hair in the sea wind from Venezuela. I see you in khaki and sandals at the waterfront café in French Marigot

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listening to an island band playing a decent imitation of vintage American rock ‘ n ‘ roll. Chuck Berry and old Jerry Lee were part of our courting years, and we grin at the aging lyrics – “Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee ….” I glance and see you beside me at blackjack tables around the world. Was it in Vegas where you wore a long gold dress and the fur coat you bought for $50 at a second-hand clothing shop? I think so. We played all night, I remember that. Guilty though you felt about buying anything made of fur, you were the perfect 1930s vamp as I counted cards in my blue suspenders. Or I look up ever so slightly from the fingerboard of my jazz guitar and watch as you play the second chorus of “Gone with the Wind”, the one where you do the little two-fingered runs I like so well. You are hunched over the keyboard, slightly swaying in pink and white and wearing dark glasses. The sun hammers down, while people dance, by a pool, on the Fourth of July, in Chicago. And you are sleepy in bed and lit so gently by early light when I bring you coffee on high, hard winter mornings, while the wood stove putters around trying to douse the cold of the night. I have been up for hours reading and writing. You are no morning person, so talk must come later. Still, I hover around, clumsily, just to look at you and smell the warm, perfumed scent of your body. It seems I have spent a lifetime running toward you. I have tossed in my bed in Arabian desert towns. I have stared off midnight balconies in deep Asia, watching dhows older than me tug at their moorings and long for the thrash of coastal waters, missing you and wondering about you. I am uneasy at being nearly thirty-hours’ flying time from you. That’s too far. Then, over the miles and across the oceans, through a thousand airports, I am home, wrinkled and worn, and you are there with a single rose and a small sign that says, “Welcome Home, Captain Cook, Welcome Home.” Late into the night we laugh as I take the gold and silver presents from my battered suitcase. I have trusted the years, and I was right to do so. They brought me you. We have watched others’ lives intertwine and then unravel. But we have held together. At least for this life, in this time.

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Yet I am haunted by the feeling that we might not meet again, that this might be just our one moment in the great sweep of things. Once, as I lay on the floor, breathing through oxygen tubes, looking past the somber faces of paramedics, I saw your tears, and I felt a great sadness, worrying not about myself, but rather that I might not find you again in the swirling crowds out there in the centuries to come. It was the loss of you, not life, that I feared. For we have come by different ways to this place. I have no feeling that we have met before. No déjà vu. I don’t think it was you in lavender by the sea as I rode by in A.D. 1206 or beside me in the border wars. Or there in the Gallatins, a hundred years ago, lying with me in the silver-green grass above some mountain town. I can tell by the natural ease with which you wear fine clothes and the way your mouth moves when you speak to waiters in good restaurants. You have come the way of castles and cathedrals, of elegance and empire. If you were there in the Gallatins, you were married to a wealthy rancher and lived in a grand house. I was a gambler at the table or the mountain man at the bar or the fiddler in the corner, playing a slow waltz to his memories. The dust from your carriage was of more value than my life in those days, and it drowned me in longing and sullied my dreams as you passed by in the street. Somehow, though, for this life and this time, we came together. You taught me about caring and softness and intimacy. The task before me was to teach you about music. And dreams. And how to savor the smell of ancient cities and the sound of cards whispering across green felt. This I have done. So I rest secure knowing that you have learned and that, in another time, you might recognize me coming across the street of some gambler’s town, in high brown boots with an old fiddle case over my shoulder, as your carriage moves by in the dust. And perhaps you will smile and nod and, for a strange and flickering moment, you will remember how the waves of January wash the sea wall at Marigot.

COMPREHENSION CHECK AND TEXT ANALYSIS

1 How many characters are there in the essay?2 How long has the author been married to his wife Georgia Ann?

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3 Has their family life always been steady and peaceful?4 What lessons did both the author and his wife learn after years of marriage?5 What is the author’s attitude to his wife? What features of hers does he appreciate mostly? Read aloud to support your ideas and arguments.6 What do you think about Georgia Ann as a wife and a person?7 Why is the essay entitled “Slow Waltz for Georgia Ann?8 What style and what language does the author use to describe his feelings and emotions? Go back to the text for illustrations.9 Does the author really believe in everything he writes about? Do you believe?10 What do two essays you have read by Robert James Waller have in common and what makes them different?

SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS1 What can you say about the relations between your parents?2 How long have your parents been held together?3 Do you know much about when and how they met?4 Does each of your parent contribute to a happy family life?5 What are your family values?6 Do you consider family a big treasure?

CONTENT VOCABULARY1 Complete the sentences using the participles II you came across in the text:1 Water and air can make the iron ____________.2 If people are kind and ready to help others we call them __________.3 Confused and embarrassed people might feel _____________.4 After striking things hard and often, beating them out of shape, they become ______________.5 To be ___________ by the feeling means to have this feeling habitually or repeatedly.

( battered, haunted, rusted, discomfited, good-natured)

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2 Guess the words through their definitions:1 Glass or pottery drinking-vessel with a stem and base and no handle.2 Period or season of grape harvesting.3 Strong, persistent desire.4 A person who is trained to assist a physician or to give the first aid or other health care in the absence of a physician.5 Nonwoven fabric of wool, fur or hair. (longing, vintage, felt, goblet, paramedic)

3 Match the words on the left with their antonyms on the right: to interwine – new to flourish- special conventional – elegantly battered – to decay clumsily- to unravel 4 Use proper prepositions when completing the sentences from the text: 1 You probably have been satisfied, maybe happier, ____ a more conventional man.2 You were plainly discomfited _____ my lurching ____ one passion _____ another, _____ basketball _____ music, ______ city _____ city,_____ the solitude of my study _____ the dark bars where I am _____home _____ my instruments.3 When we took suitcases down _____ closet shelves and stared _____ each other ____ anger, love was there.4 The sun hammers down, while people dance, ____ a pool, ____ the Fourth ____ July, ____ Chicago.5 You are sleepy ____ bed and lit so gently ____ early light.

5 Make a list of 12 compound words scrabbled below:Twi tail time finger micro mid ear light ring para tea board case cock life phone night medic key suit ball pot basket board.

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PART IIBEFORE READING

“Never on Wednesday”by Richard A.Via was selected from “Plays for Reading: Using Drama in EFL”, third edition, 1998. Dean Curry, who compiled the first edition, dedicated these book of plays to Richard A.Via who “brought the magic of Broadway theater to students of English as a Foreign Language”.

Read the play and reveal your language and artistic skills in the class. NEVER ON WEDNESDAY by Richard A. Via CHARACTERS:Fred, about 17 years oldDorothy (Dot), about 16 years oldTom, about 14 years oldDad, 40-45 yeas oldMother, 38-43 years old

NEVER ON WEDNESDAY is a look at an average family in the United States. The conversation is very informal and includes a lot of teasing among the young people. Tom, in fact, even mimics his father. Most of the conversation is the type that might be repeated daily. The humor comes from seeing ourselves in a natural situation. _____________Setting: The action takes place in the living room of a “typical” American family. Dad is reading the evening newspaper and is sitting in a chair to the right of a lamp table on stage right. Dorothy is in the chair to the left of this table and is busily manicuring her fingernails. The sound of the nail file as it scratches back and forth bothers Tom, who is trying to do his homework. Tom is seated at a table behind the sofa on stage left. Fred is stretched out on the sofa reading a comic book. Mother is off the stage right, in the kitchen.Time: Just after dinner(supper) – 7:30 p.m.At Rise: We watch the quiet scene for a few moments. Then the phone rings in the hall off stage left. Both Dot and Fred react quickly. Both jump to answer it, but Fred is nearer and quicker. They speak as they get

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up, and at the same time. Fred thinks it’s his girl friend and Dot thinks it’s her boy friend calling. __________________

FRED. I’ll get it (Goes to the door and exits to the hall)DOT. Oooooh! I think it’s for me. (She returns to the table to put the nail file down) Tell him I’ll be there in a sec. (She looks at the hall door, expecting to be called to the phone. When she isn’t, she sits and starts working on her nails again. Dad and Tom pay no attention to this activity)TOM. (without looking up) Tell her I’m busy. Ask her to leave her number.(We hear Fred talking in the hall on the phone, but we cannot understand what he is saying)FRED. (standing in the doorway) Dad, can I use the car tonight?TOM. (imitating Dad) No. FRED.(goes to the left end of the sofa) Would you be quiet?TOM. You’ll see… “No.”FRED. (to Tom – annoyed) Don’t put ideas in his head. (Goes to dad’s right. Starts talking at first step) – Dad, can I have the car tonight?DAD. Uhmmm? FRED. (slightly upset that Dad didn’t listen) I said, “Can I use the car tonight?”DAD. (correcting Fred’s English) May I … FRED. Okay. May I?DAD. May you what?FRED.(really annoyed with the older generation – perhaps throws his arms up in disgust) You mean you really didn’t hear anything I said except “can”? (Goes behind Dad to center stage)DOT.(actually teasing Dad rather than Fred) Haven’t you heard of the generation gap? They turn us off.DAD. Not as often as you turn us off.FRED. You heard that – and she wasn’t even talking to you. (Goes back to Dad’s left) Why don’t you hear me?DOT. (teasing Fred) It’s your deep voice. It doesn’t carry.

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TOM. It won’t carry through that scratching you’re making with that nail file.DOT. (teasing Ton because he bites his fingernails) At least I don’t bite my nails – like some people do.TOM. (imitating nail-file noise – this sound should be loud and exaggerated) Grrgh-grrgh. I can’t even do my homework.FRED. (goes to the center again) Would you two cut it out. I’m trying to reach Dad. (Goes to Dad’s left, behind the lamp table) Dad?DAD.(without looking up) Uhmmm?FRED. Dad?(Trying to make him listen, he stretches the word, Da-a-a-d – perhaps almost singing. Then, as if trying to contact a spirit.) Dad, give us a sign you are listening: one rap for YES, (raps on the table once) two for NO. (raps twice)DAD. (putting the paper down) Okay, you got through. What is it?FRED. Whew! ( a sound like letting off steam, indicating relief) (Goes to Dad’s right) Dad, may I use the car tonight?Dad. No.(Goes back to his paper)FRED. Wait!!! Don’t hang up! (as if Dad were on the phone). I am not finished.TOM. (smiles as he goes to the bookcase up center for a book) I told you so.(mother enters and listens to this bit of dialogue, Tom returns to the table)FRED. Back to your books, Einstein. (Goes to right center)MOTHER. Fred, I have told you about that. (Goes to the sofa, sits on the right end, and picks up knitting or sewing from the coffee table)Rather than tease Tom, you’d better do a little studying yourself.Dot. Do you like the color, Mother? (Shows her fingernails)MOTHER. You shouldn’t do your nails in the living room, dear. They should only be done in the privacy of one’s boudoir.DOT. (simultaneously) …in the privacy of one’s boudoir. (Said with a bored sound, because she has heard this so many times)MOTHER. Yes. And Tom, why don’t you study in your own room?TOM. This is where the action is – it’s too quiet up there.DOT. Mother. (Goes to Mother) You didn’t answer me. Do you like this color?

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MOTHER. Very pretty.DOT. (going back to chair) It’s new … a special color for this month: Passion Pink.TOM. (teasing Dot, imitates the girls in TV commercials) “And my hair color is special this month: Blatant Black.”DOT. (not thinking he is funny) Oh, you are so funny. (Not laughing, but flat:) Ha, ha, ha . . .MOTHER. By the way, where was all that help I was going to have in the kitchen with the dishes?TOM. I had to do homework.DOT. And my nails.FRED. I have been trying to talk to Dad.MOTHER. You kids are really great at finding excuses. Homework isn’t so urgent when the Rolling Stones are on TV, and nails can stop when there is someone to gossip with on the phone. (Slight pause-then:)TOM. (pokes his mother’s back) What about Fred? Why don’t you attack him?MOTHER. Well … when a son wants to talk to his father, that’s important.FRED. I thought so, too. (Goes to the sofa and sits down)MOTHER. What did you two talk about?FRED. Nothing.MOTHER. Nothing?FRED. He said about ten words. (Indicates newspaper) I can’t crash the newspaper barrier.MOTHER. Paul?(dad put the paper down immediately. He has been well trained by Mother to listen to her when she speaks)DAD. Yes, dear?TOM. That’s training!MOTHER. (to Tom) Do you want to leave the room? (Tom shakes his head No)MOTHER. Then behave yourself.DAD. Yes, dear? You wanted me?

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MOTHER. No, Paul. Fred wanted to talk to you. (Fred starts to go to Dad, gets to center)DAD. Oh, that. (He starts reading again- paper up)FRED. (turns back to Mother) You see! That! He refers to me as “that’!MOTHER. Don’t be upset … He is tired. Paul?DAD. (paper down) Yes, dear?MOTHER. (signaling Fred to go to Dad) Now, go ahead.FRED. (quickly) Dad, may I …(Goes quickly to Dad’s right)DAD. No. (paper up)FRED. (to Dad) Wait. (goes back to center. To Mother:) You see?MOTHER. (rises, goes to Fred) What was it you wanted to talk to him about?DAD. (paper down) He wants to use the car. (paper up)MOTHER. (goes to Dad’s right) Well, why can’t he?DAD. (paper down) It’s Wednesday. (paper up)MOTHER. Yes, it’s Wednesday.DOT. You don’t need a calendar in this house. You just ask Dad for the car and he tells you what day it is.MOTHER. (goes behind table near Dad) Dorothy, that’s not nice.DOT. Well, it’s true. Yesterday I asked and he said, “No, it’s Tuesday.”DAD. (paper down) You know the rules.(Speaking together:)FRED. Yes, we know the rules. Weekends only.TOM. Yes, you may only use the car on weekends.DOT. Do we ever! Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon.DAD. (paper up) Right.MOTHER. (to Fred) What did you want the car for?DAD. (paper down) I said No. (paper up)MOTHER. Now, don’t be so harsh. Maybe there’s a special reason for him needing the car.DAD. (paper down) A rule is a rule. (paper up)(Tom mouths the above line as Dad says it, but makes no sound)MOTHER. (goes to Fred) Where were you going?TOM. (guessing why he wants the car and teasing) To a drive-in movie with that new girl.DOT. (referring to the new girl) She bleaches her hair, you know.

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FRED. She does not.MOTHER. (disappointed in Fred, goes to the sofa and sits down) You want the car to date on a week night?FRED. No! (Very annoyed with Tom, he goes to him and musses his hair) See what you started. Why don’t you grow up?MOTHER. Now, boys (meaning, Don’t start a fight). What did you want the car for, Fred?FRED. Well, it’s secret.DOT. (comes back to center) It was her, though, wasn’t it? As soon as you hung up you came in and asked Dad for the car.TOM. I don’t go with girls who call me. (Rises, stretches. His back is tired from doing homework:) I call them. I am going to be the boss and make the decisions. No girl is going to run my life. (Sits down)FRED. Some boss! Every time you call a girl, she hangs up on you.TOM. (very strong, defending his manhood). That’s not so!MOTHER. Let’s not start again. Now both of you, be quiet.FRED. Look, Mom. (Goes back to the sofa, sits down) I really need the car. Honest.MOTHER. Don’t you think you ought to tell us where you are going?FRED. Can’t you trust me? It’s a surprise.TOM. (almost laughing – teasing Fred) Yeah, I bet. (Meaning: I am sure it will be a surprise!) We were surprised that time you smashed the left fender, too. (Takes book back to shelf)FRED. (disgusted) Oh, forget it. (Starts for door left) I’ll go by taxi. (The word “taxi” makes Dad listen)DAD. (paper down) To a drive-in-movie?FRED. I told you I am not going to a movie. (Comes back a step)DAD. Well, a taxi anywhere will be expensive.FRED. I have to go, and you won’t let me use the car.DAD. All right. Then let’s talk it over. What’s so urgent? (Puts paper down on table)MOTHER. He said it was a secret.FRED. A surprise.DAD. And you can’t tell us what it is!DOT. I’m going to use that technique the next time I want something.DAD. I haven’t said Yes yet.

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MOTHER. Don’t you think you could let him this time, Paul?DAD. How long will you want it?FRED. If I don’t hurry, I won’t need it at all. Grandma’s at the station.MOTHER.(rises) Grandma?!FRED. Yes! She said she’d take a taxi, but I said I’d be right down… Oh my gosh, she’s still on the phone! (He rushes into the hall)DAD. (gets up) Why didn’t she let us know?MOTHER. Fred said she wanted to surprise us.( Fred returns)DAD. You’d better get moving.DOT. Can I ride down with you? (Goes to door left)TOM. Me, too. (Closes books and goes to the door)MOTHER. What about your homework and your nails?DOT. They are okay. (Exits)TOM. I’ll do it later. (Exits)MOTHER. Hurry, dear. What are you waiting for?FRED. The keys.DAD. Oh … oh, sorry. (Goes to Fred, hands him the keys) Now drive careful.MOTHER. (correcting Dad’s English) Carefully (with strong stress on the last syllable).DAD. Yes, dear. (He watches them leave)MOTHER. Now why didn’t she let me know she was coming? She knows I like to have things ready. (Mother picks up a comic book and the sewing from the sofa and coffee table. She goes to the chair right and picks up the newspaper, then to the lamp table and picks up all manicure staff)DAD. (as he crosses to his chair to resume reading) If she let you know, you’ll get all worked up about everything …(He can’t find his paper) …cooking … cleaning… Tom’s hair (He suddenly sees that Mother has the paper and goes to her for it)MOTHER. (who now is picking up all of Tom’s books and papers and putting everything in the bookcase) But she should have called. Suppose we’d been away?DAD. (gets his paper) In the middle of the week? With the kids in school and me at work? Not likely!

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MOTHER. Just the same, I wish I’d known.DAD. (sits down) No communication …(hunts for what he was reading) … generation gap …(he finds it) … only at the other end of the line. (Paper up – Dad reads. Mother continues to straiten things up as the curtain falls)

CURTAIN

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PART III

WIT & WISDOM

The quotations and abstracts below have been selected topically and can be used for sharing your ideas either orally or in writing.

Dad has long and earnest conversations with his baby daughter. He tells her she is noisy, undisciplined and manipulative – and she will be sent back if she doesn’t pull herself together.And the baby smiles complacently. She has him where she wants him. - Pam Brown Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now, I have six children and no theories. - John Wilmont, Earl of Rochester

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older, they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them. - Oscar Wild

All mothers have intuition. The great ones have radar. - Cathy Guisewite

Mothers were our guide in all things and knew everything, they were our first inspiration, they loved us and wanted us to grow up a credit to them. They set the rules and when reason failed they had the last, irrefutable word – because I am your mother and I say so! You give your children two things: you give them roots and you give them wings. - Anna Tochter

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Son, how can I help you see? May I give you my shoulders to stand on? Now you see farther than me. Now you see for both of us. Won’t you tell me what you see? - H.Jackson Brown, Jr.

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