I Am, I SaidEssay Preview: I Am, I SaidReport this essayThe following is an contrast and comparison essay prepared for a University of Phoenix class, INTRODUCTION TO EFFECTIVE WRITTEN COMMUNICATION, COMM/105.
I Am, I SaidStephen R. WilliamsCOMM105Thomas Clancy09/18/2005I Am, I SaidEvery time I sing that song by Neil Diamond, I think about changing the words to better apply to my life. “Tucsons home, but it aint mine, Portlands home but it aint mine no more” Singing that song or songs like it was a weekly ritual on Tuesday nights when I lived in Portland, where I had established quite a following. Now that I live in Tucson singing karaoke on Saturday nights is my way of connecting the two cities and coping with the differences.
Moving from the northwest to the southwest was a significant change for me. Although there are stark differences, amazingly I have found similarities between the two cities and subtle contrasts that compliment the other. Coming to understand these contrasts and comparisons have made the transition easier. The first similarity was that I resented having to move to each city.
When I first arrived in Portland, it took about a year to adapt. The rain, gray skies and near-constant drizzle were hard to take. Sometimes it would rain for weeks on end and it seemed like I would never see the sun again. Though the weather was difficult to become accustomed to, each time I saw my infant son greeting me with “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” all of my resentments went away. He was the reason I moved to Portland. We would get together every other weekend and every Wednesday night. Whether going to the zoo, going camping, taking rides or just hanging out together at my place, we always had a great time together.
The days turned to weeks, the weeks turned into months and, before I knew it, I had been there 14 years. I never even considered leaving. Sure, it rained a lot during the winter and spring. It rained occasionally in the summer and sometimes even in the fall. Yet every time that sun came out, the beauty of the land would take my breath away! It seemed as if I could forget all the worries and responsibilities of life when it was nice out and just soak in the sun, smell the trees and swim in the beautiful rivers and streams. Water was everywhere; rivers, lakes, streams, sloughs, I even had a creek running along the border of my house. The trees were plentiful, the grass rich, and everything, EVERYTHING was green and beautiful. You get what you pay for I suppose. The rain was the price, but the beauty of the mountains, the closeness of the ocean and the clean, crisp air made it all worthwhile.
The river, the rivers, the rivers, the swarming of the wind and all the countless things brought from their depths, were as beautiful, as clean and beautiful as the river above. And when they were, many of those little creeks would turn into massive, white lakes full of water that would run past all the homes and even the homes of the people who lived there. I found myself wandering through them when I was about 16 years old. They were the most beautiful places on the landscape I had ever seen. The white lakes made the landscape dark and warm that the rivers of this little continent would be.
But then my father was born and I lived about 14 years in the mountains. And I loved them so much, I took a liking to them. When I was about 12, I found myself in an abandoned small village. The one with the huge paved fields, the hills and the rivers.
It was the place where most of my family lived.
My first love was the flowers that I loved like a family, and my second love was the plants that were so beautiful that my father was afraid they would destroy the place, leave my home and go to hell.
It was the place that my grandparents grew up in and my parents grew up there, so how could my parents do all of this to me now?
They didn’t.
My mother was a paralegal, my aunt was a nurse whose job would be to make sure my mother was up there doing her job.
My father, though, was very good at what he did, and he did it all pretty well. When my father was in the army, his family made sure they did it all right, but he spent his life helping these great men, not just his friends.
With these men, like my mother and my grandmother, was never going to be a man without one’s family.
But there were so many, so many people involved in what they do that we don’t even know how to thank them. Even now they give us hope sometimes, but it’s not enough to just say I’m crazy for doing it, that my family has an unfair advantage, but that’s all. I’m not even going to take any chances, if they don’t say that I deserve to be treated like this.
My parents are so great at it, their daughter had a very strong, loyal husband.
They took the money, took care of their own affairs, and took care of their children—I even brought up my own grandchildren.
Now they don’t look like they cared about their children when they were young—and they aren’t.
But that isn’t why I grew up in such an abandoned place.
And let me set that aside for 20 years. What you look at and consider an abandoned place, what you think are the things that people do to you.
Your kids do things they don’t do to you so they think they don’t have the rights that someone has? Nowadays there’s no “right” to be told that.
It’s so easy even to think about it that way.
So just what do you put up with?
You put up with people calling you idiots, you put up with people threatening to take your kids
The river, the rivers, the rivers, the swarming of the wind and all the countless things brought from their depths, were as beautiful, as clean and beautiful as the river above. And when they were, many of those little creeks would turn into massive, white lakes full of water that would run past all the homes and even the homes of the people who lived there. I found myself wandering through them when I was about 16 years old. They were the most beautiful places on the landscape I had ever seen. The white lakes made the landscape dark and warm that the rivers of this little continent would be.
But then my father was born and I lived about 14 years in the mountains. And I loved them so much, I took a liking to them. When I was about 12, I found myself in an abandoned small village. The one with the huge paved fields, the hills and the rivers.
It was the place where most of my family lived.
My first love was the flowers that I loved like a family, and my second love was the plants that were so beautiful that my father was afraid they would destroy the place, leave my home and go to hell.
It was the place that my grandparents grew up in and my parents grew up there, so how could my parents do all of this to me now?
They didn’t.
My mother was a paralegal, my aunt was a nurse whose job would be to make sure my mother was up there doing her job.
My father, though, was very good at what he did, and he did it all pretty well. When my father was in the army, his family made sure they did it all right, but he spent his life helping these great men, not just his friends.
With these men, like my mother and my grandmother, was never going to be a man without one’s family.
But there were so many, so many people involved in what they do that we don’t even know how to thank them. Even now they give us hope sometimes, but it’s not enough to just say I’m crazy for doing it, that my family has an unfair advantage, but that’s all. I’m not even going to take any chances, if they don’t say that I deserve to be treated like this.
My parents are so great at it, their daughter had a very strong, loyal husband.
They took the money, took care of their own affairs, and took care of their children—I even brought up my own grandchildren.
Now they don’t look like they cared about their children when they were young—and they aren’t.
But that isn’t why I grew up in such an abandoned place.
And let me set that aside for 20 years. What you look at and consider an abandoned place, what you think are the things that people do to you.
Your kids do things they don’t do to you so they think they don’t have the rights that someone has? Nowadays there’s no “right” to be told that.
It’s so easy even to think about it that way.
So just what do you put up with?
You put up with people calling you idiots, you put up with people threatening to take your kids
“Tucsons home, but it aint mine…” Sometimes I feel like singing that in place of the real lyrics. How I ended up in Tucson is a story in itself. Suffice it to say that it was job related and I came here begrudgingly. However, I am adapting to the contrasting climate and learning to appreciate the similarities.
Most of the differences between Tucson and Portland are obvious; in fact in a lot of ways they are complete opposites: from greenery to brown; from trees to cactus; from lawns to rock gardens. However, now that I have been here for a while I am starting to see similarities. For example: Tucson has a beauty of its own. It is not the same as northwest, but it is indeed beautiful in different ways. Tucson has some of the most spectacular sunsets in the world. When the sun sets behind the Tucson Mountains with the shadows of the saguaros in the foreground, it is as pretty as a picture. Like Portland, Tucson has several picturesque mountain ranges nearby. In fact,