Author: breebe20

The Italian district of Gloucester, Massachusetts has always been rich with cultural history and pride and nothing illustrates this better than the five day annual celebration of Saint Peter’s Fiesta.

The vast majority of the Italians who settled in Gloucester during the early 20th century made their livelihoods as fisherman, a job that shaped Gloucester’s culture and economy, but was certainly not without risk. The blue collar men were often away and working perilously at the mercy of the seas. While they were away, the women began the tradition of gathering together and praying to Saint Peter, the patron saint of the fishermen.

In 1927, a life sized statue of St. Peter was enshrined in the heart of the district. Fishermen and their families soon began a procession, marching the statue throughout the city and praying to their patron saint for safety and success on the seas. This tradition evolved into the fiesta that is still held every year in the month of June.

Today, the celebration includes amusement park rides, performances down town, a parade, parties, lots of food, and many other festivities, but the event of the Greasy Pole has become most notable of all.

The Greasy Pole Contest was brought over from Sicily and has become a significant cultural tradition in Gloucester. In the event, men (generally of Italian decent) run down a greased Pole in the middle of Gloucester Harbor in an attempt to retrieve the flag at the end of the walk. The victor is paraded through the streets and is able to drink for free at each public house along the way.

The fiesta officially ends on Sunday night at midnight when the statue of Saint Peter is marched throughout the boulevard, followed by a lively, chanting crowd. The statue is then stored away on display where it will remain until fiesta next June.

His fingers wander across the strings, dancing to the melody that they pluck from the surface of the instrument. He always has it, his precious ukulele whose chords have become the vowels of his voice and the epitome of his passions. Music is the muse of his life. Every word that leaves his lips is a lyric, every beat of his heart the drum of the song that he’s weaving together in his mind. His baritone is his battlecry, a birdsong in flight, but it echoes from behind bleak bars.

He is caged. He lives confined within the four corners of his bedroom walls, old and daunting friends that assure him of his solitude.

He is tired; tired of the personal punching bag that he’s become, tired of arriving home to fistfights of words and accusations, tired of protecting his brothers childhood at the price of his own.

He is so far away. He doesn’t forget it, either. Every Skype call seems to trace the miles of distance away from home, a bandaid over a bulletwound that gushes out the loneliness drowning him from within.

I see myself in him. It does nothing to ease the pain, but I tell him I know how he feels. I know what it feels like to lay in bed at night, completley and insufferably alone, anxious as the life you long for slips through the cracks of your fingertips and the anger and the sorrow and the sheer exasperation swallows you whole. I have known loneliness, I’m familiar with with the incessant lament that it sings, but not once have I heard him hum its tune.

The ukulele is a curious instrument, it is near impossible to make it sound sad.

His fingers are wandering across the strings, but they’re dancing to a tune of joy. He belts out hymns and songs of passion, his lyrics speak mostly of love.

He is lonely and he is tired, he has lived in shadow and has cursed his light, he has known hurt and has been betrayed. Still, the bird rises each morning with the sun and finds it in himself to sing.

Throughout American history, Abraham Lincoln has often been credited with the act of ending slavery, however, when taking into consideration a broader historical context, it must be noted that the credit does not belong to Lincoln alone.

The Emancipation Proclamation is often cited as the act responsible for the liberation of the slaves, but when closer inspected, it did not at all bring about the change that it is credited for. The Emancipation Proclamation called for the liberation of the slaves existing in states that were in rebellion with the Union, neglecting to address the slaveholding states that were already a part of the Union. While this was a strategic tactic by Lincoln in attempt to keep peace with the slave states in the North, the fact remains that the Emmancipation Proclamation did not bring freedom to the slaves in the way that most people believe it did.

Instead, the ultimate liberation of the slaves was the result of the efforts of the many African Americans who struggled to assert freedom for themselves.  Run aways and slave insurrections enforced the ideals that until that point, were not much more than promises on paper.

Overall, one party can not be given full credit for the prolonged and strenuous task of freeing the millions of slaves in America. The actions and impact of Abraham Lincoln and his presidency brought the issue of emancipation to the forefront of American society, but it took the effort and determination of the slaves themselves to truly achieve that freedom.

Rowing was exhilarating. All 8 of us moved in unison, hands gripping the metal pole of our paddles as we crashed through the white water rapids. Every stroke was in time, our voices sounding above the roar of the waves as we chanted rhythmically, “ūnus, duo, trēs, quattuor!”

Counting in Latin was Tyler’s idea; he sat at the nose of the raft, body taking the brunt of the waves, jet black hair matted in the wind. He was the only one proficient in Latin, but the volume of his counting carried over the noise of the river so that the rest of us were able to follow along.

All around us, walls of earth stretched upward towards the grey sky, carving out the path of the river that we rafted down. It smelled like a storm was brewing in the air.     We muscled our way through the last strip of rough water, pushing forward as we struggled to keep ourselves from being tossed over the edge of the raft and into the bubbling waters below.

As we exited the rapids, the water abruptly became still. The river gently carried us along and the danger of the white water gradually faded into a dull roar in the distance. The scenery was breathtaking. The reflection of the sky danced across the surface of the dark waters and lush green trees covered the rocky terrain.  Tyler stood up in the front of the boat, cupping his hands around his mouth and howling into the air. His voice echoed across the water.

“The rest of the way is like this.” Our advisor said from the back of the boat. “You can get out and swim if you’d like.”

About half of us took the offer and floated down the river on our backs. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to go. I hope to return and do it all again sometime.

          Writers take on many different voices when fabricating stories, but no matter how diverse the range of stories they tell, the writer can often be identified by rhetoric elements that link their work back to them. This “common theme” that the writer uses throughout their work can be composed of many different elements and the application looks different from writer to writer. David Grann is an example of a writer with a consistent style that can easily be identified throughout his work. When compared, his writings Trial by Fire, Yankee Comandante, and The Lost City of Z, are all similar in composition despite telling very different stories and they can be identified as Grann’s work due to his nontraditional style of writing nonfiction.

One element of writing that can be seen throughout all three of these pieces is David Grann’s successful characterization. He breathes life into the people he describes on the page by analyzing their thoughts and illustrating their perspectives to the reader. His effort and ability to immerse himself in the shoes of these people allows for him to stray from the more traditional style of nonfiction writing and instead, retell the story scene by scene with regards to the emotions and thoughts of the people who were involved.

Furthermore, Grann is able to maximize the effect of this technique of storytelling through the use of dialogue. Each of these three stories feature vivid conversations that enrich the writing and add to its authenticity. Dialogue allows for readers to connect with the characters Grann describes and it creates dynamic interactions that aid in retelling events. For example, Grann uses dialogue to flush out Morgan’s personality in Yankee Comandante, notably at the scene of his death where his final spoken words were “I kneel for no man.” Grann also uses dialogue in Trial by Fire to convey the hysterical emotion of Todd Willingham as he repeats over and over that his babies are still trapped inside the burning house. These same techniques can be seen throughout The Lost City of Z.