Narrative Essay About Growing Up Text

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length: 18 words 3.2 double spaced pages rating: red free i stumbled out into the yard, my flimsy tennis shoes wrapped in plastic bags and secured with tape. The great blizzard of chattanooga had almost subsided, but snow still lay thick on the ground. My parents were trapped out of town at the state basketball tournament, and my three sisters and i had a baby sitter that was staying with us. We had enough food to last a while, and our family owned enough sleeping bags and blankets to ensure that we didn't freeze. Tracy, our baby sitter, approached me one day while i was reading a book by the window. Jeff, she said, do you know how to chop wood? the correct answer to the question was no, for i had only handed logs to my father and watched him smite them in two with a vicious swing.

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I tried once, but i could not swing the heavy maul hard enough to snap a splinter. How much do you need? i knew full well that it would be extremely unmanly to confess that i could not break a log in two, and the realization that she probably could have done it never hit me. I trudged back into my room with a sense of sorrowful duty, like a soldier going on a suicide mission to save his brothers.

I allowed my baby sitter to tie the bags on my feet, imagining her as my page readying my trusty sword before battle. I brushed this off as senseless babble, for everyone knew that only men could chop wood. I trekked across the yard with my head down, snowflakes blowing into my eyes and the cold wind biting at my nose. The large logs were stored under the deck, and the planks were very high up, allowing me to chop the wood without having to stand in the snow.

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I rolled a log into position, not without a good deal of difficulty, but i reasoned that the log would not be quite so ornery once i had broken it into little pieces. I reached for the maul, prepared to save my household of women from the merciless storm. I had forgotten how heavy the maul was, and i was having a great amount of difficulty trying to get it over my shoulder. I swung it backwards, hoping the momentum would carry it high enough for me to get under it. Finally, i gripped it at the head, put it over my shoulder, and moved my other hand down into the chopping position i had seen my father demonstrate.

Because the maul was so burdensome, i was forced to hold it right next to the head in order to swing it. I attacked the wood with all the strength i had, and it split right down the middle. My hand, ponderously close to the head of the maul, struck the wood a second after the maul did, but my hand didn't split the wood. Hellfire! hellfire happened to be my father's favorite curse word, and i had heard him use it often by the wood pile.

My knuckles were split and bleeding, and the cold air burned horribly as it blew into my cuts. I knew that a true man wouldn't quit after he got a small cut, so i set up the next log. Taking great pains to ensure that my hand was away from the head of the maul, i took a swing at the log. Finally, using several of the curse words i had added to my vocabulary over the years, i threw the stubborn log aside and grabbed a new one. I was able to split that one, and i gradually learned that i could split the logs without knots after several swings. When i had split six logs my arms would no longer function, and i gratefully dropped the maul to survey my handiwork.

Pieces of logs were scattered around me, and many more logs with dents in them were lying here and there. Next to the huge pile of logs my split pieces looked pitifully small, but i had worked hard for my wood, and i felt pride that i had been able to chop even one log. The walk from under the deck to the house was about twenty yards, which by my reasoning is not far if you are running a marathon but a good distance if you are carrying a load of wood. I loaded up as much wood as i could lift off the ground and headed for the house.

I carried it until my arm almost fell off and i was forced to allow it to crash into the snow. I repeated this process six times before i reached my house, and i switched hands several times. I guess i could have made several trips, but i wanted to show the women of the house that i was capable of bringing in enough wood to last for a day. I did not dwell on the fact that i would have to chop more wood soon, but rather as i stood huffing in the snow i knew that i was man enough to do what needed to be done. When i struggled into the house i made a lot of noise, hoping to draw an admiring crowd. I stocked the fireplace, sorted the rest of the wood, and headed upstairs to find out where everyone was. They lay on couches and on the floor, oblivious to what i had done for the past hour.

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