After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, what do you know about the author and her socio-cultural background? How do you know these things about her? Which detail stuck out most to you, and why?
Blog #2
25 Jan
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Journal Responses ENC 1102-55 
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood I am able to conclude that she is extremely passionate about what she does. In the beginning, she talks about playing football and how you either give it your all or nothing. “If you flung yourself wholeheartedly at the back of his knees—if you gathered and joined body and soul and pointed them diving fearlessly—then you likely wouldn’t get hurt, and you’d stop the ball. Your fate, and your team’s score, depended on your concentration and courage.” I can tell she is a very brave girl; tackling boys to the ground and even getting tackled herself. She grew up in a community with many boys whom she spent most of her childhood days with. They taught her everything she knows about sports and never giving up. I am also able to tell that she likes to feel the “thrill” of situations. She is an adventurous girl that is always up for some excitement in her life. Dillard and her guy friends were only seeking to fulfill this excitement.
The detail that stuck out most to me was when she said, “he had released our jackets, our pursuer, our hero: he knew we weren’t going anywhere. We all played by the rules.” Dillard is basically comparing this snowball fight to football; the man ran his heart out until he reached the two, giving it his all, just like you do out on the field. The fact that they had been running for minutes, maybe even hours, and she was still happy when they were caught. This portrays that Dillard is committed and loves what she does. I liked this excerpt because it shows to never give up on anything; to always try your absolute hardest in everything you do.
After reading this excerpt by Dillard, it can be inferred that she loved and cherished her days as child growing up and she vividly remembers all the fun she had playing with the boys in her neighborhood. She enjoyed learning to play football and baseball from the boys and she seemed to especially love the intricacies and strategies that it took to be successful throughout the game. She goes on to say, “Your fate, and your team’s score, depended on your concentration and courage.” She then goes on to say, “Nothing girls did could even compare,” explaining that to her, there was no way that she would have had as much playing with the girls as much as she did playing football with the boys. I thought that Dillard’s courage and understanding of the game leads the reader to believe that she was proud to be almost “one of the guys” and proved that she could hang with the best of them, which is something that you usually don’t see nowadays.
I thought the detail that stuck out the most to me was when Dillard said, “He chased us silently, block after block. He chased us silently over picket fences, through thorny hedges, between houses, around garbage cans, and across streets.” I thought it was awesome that she was willing to capture and harness the thrill and excitement of the situation, and to run from the man from the black Buick as long as she could through the treacherous terrain through which she chose to take as her escape route. She seemed almost inviting of the danger that the opportunity of being chased brought and I thought her snowball-throwing companions would have been proud of the fight she put up in trying to elude the driver. It seemed Dillard loved the thrills that her childhood accompanied her with and she always rose to challenge and never gave up in everything she did.
The excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Dream expressed many profound details about the author’s socio-cultural background. The mere fact that the narrator was so dedicated and devoted in all that she did made her very courageous and extremely unique. She found incredible joy and was always eager to participate in sports like football or baseball and never gave up, she believed “it was all or nothing”. She was not a conformist because she had lots of courage to stand up for what she enjoyed doing, she was fearless. She states in the text “if you hesitate in fear, you would miss and get hurt; you would take a hard fall while the kid got away, or you would get kicked in the face while the kid got away. She was very confident and showed off a lot of enthusiasm when she spoke about her love of sports, which revealed how crucial of a role those times played in her overall childhood. The time she spent with the boys was one of the most joyful of her entire life. In the excerpt, Annie Dillard mentions, “I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happy since.” Another detail about her socio-cultural background is the strong relationship with her parents. She received great support from her parents who accepted the fact that she spent all of her time with boys than socializing with girls her age. It can also be inferred that she grew up in a very tight-knit community of mostly boys.
The detail that struck out the most in my opinion was the statement “he could have fried Mikey Fahey and me in boiling oil, say, or dismembered us piece-meal, or staked us to anthills. None of which I really wanted, and none of which any adult was likely to do, even in the spirit of fun”. Her words describe her never-ending excitement and thrill for adventure, especially in the darkest of situations. She loved challenges and showing the world how courageous she truly was.
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood I can infer that she loved her days of being a child. You can see that the narrator was very devoted to everything she did and because of this she had lots of fun playing football with the other kids in her neighborhood. “Best, you got to throw yourself
mightily at someone’s running legs. Either you brought him down or you
hit the ground at on your chin, with your arms empty before you. It was
all or nothing.” It is apparent that Dillard considered herself just another one of the guys. The boys would teach her sports and she would, in return, play the sports with them. Nothing made her happier than spending time with the boys and being another one of them as mentioned in the excerpt, “Boys welcomed me at baseball, too, for I had, through enthusiastic practice, what was weirdly known as a boy’s arm. In winter, in the snow, there was neither baseball nor football, so the boys and I threw snowballs at passing cars. I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier since.” The detail that stuck out most to me was the statement, “He chased Mikey and me around the yellow house and up a backyard
path we knew by heart: under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge,
down some snowy steps, and across the grocery store’s delivery driveway.
We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard
and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton
Avenue”. This statement portrays Dillard’s constant need for excitement. She was always seeking a new adventure for which she could challenge. Dillard always wanted another reason to feel like one of the boys in the neighborhood.
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood I can infer that she loved her days of being a child. You can see that the narrator was very devoted to everything she did and because of this she had lots of fun playing football with the other kids in her neighborhood. “Best, you got to throw yourself
mightily at someone’s running legs. Either you brought him down or you
hit the ground at on your chin, with your arms empty before you. It was
all or nothing.” It is apparent that Dillard considered herself just another one of the guys. The boys would teach her sports and she would, in return, play the sports with them. Nothing made her happier than spending time with the boys and being another one of them as mentioned in the excerpt, “Boys welcomed me at baseball, too, for I had, through enthusiastic practice, what was weirdly known as a boy’s arm. In winter, in the snow, there was neither baseball nor football, so the boys and I threw snowballs at passing cars. I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier since.” The detail that stuck out most to me was the statement, “He chased Mikey and me around the yellow house and up a backyard path we knew by heart: under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge, down some snowy steps, and across the grocery store’s delivery driveway.
We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard
and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton
Avenue”. This statement portrays Dillard’s constant need for excitement. She was always seeking a new adventure for which she could challenge. Dillard always wanted another reason to feel like one of the boys in the neighborhood.
I have actually read this excerpt from an American childhood before in my previous English class at Walsh University; I really enjoyed it and am glad it was chosen to be read here for this class. One can really take a lot away from this excerpt, such as its “so what” factor. This happened back when Annie Dillard was just a child but yet she remembers it so vividly like it was yesterday. Also, she chose to write about this particular event in her life because she felt that it was important and maybe even life changing. I think that it is safe to say that Annie was extremely passionate towards a lot of things she did in her life. One of her major childhood passions was football. “It was all or nothing” Annie said. She also later goes on to talk about how you flung yourself wholeheartedly, and dove fearlessly to make the tackle. She was definitely one passionate and adventurous little girl. One of the details that stuck out to me the most was once the man caught them, after everything he just went through, he just says “you stupid kids”. You can tell that Annie wanted the man to catch her because to her it was just like a game of football, but then once he catches her the man doesn’t quite live up to her expectations of him. She stated in the excerpt that “I wanted the glory to last forever”, she was expecting a dramatic ending, a big bang, to this thrilling chase but instead the man in a way let her down. Also, another interesting detail in this excerpt is that this man left his car in the street somewhere, with the door open, to go on this extend chase through the snow, in his business suit, just to catch some kids that through a snow ball at him. I think that this story also tells you a lot about the character of this man as well.
Upon reading Dillard’s excerpt from An American Childhood, it seemed apparent to me that she lived a blissful childhood growing up in urban streets and backyards just as many of us did as kids. She explained how one of the most joyous times in her childhood was when she was in a rather precarious situation because of the ill placement of a snowball! For some of us as kids, getting into sticky situations was something that added excitement to our lives and broke up the monotony of lazy Saturday afternoons and for others it was the end of their lives if they were caught, just “kids being kids”. In the passage, Dillard only mentioned her parents one time and it was just to acknowledge that they approved of her friends. Other than that, where are the parents when the kids are hitting cars with snowballs? To me, this is the first clue as to what her socio-cultural background may be like. Because her parents don’t seem involved as much as say my parents may have been, it leads me to believe that she was raised in a lenient household with only the basic rules, i.e. be home by dark, don’t forget to wash your hands for dinner, and don’t talk to strangers. This becomes clear through other examples that Dillard provides such as the fact that she seemed more inclined to participate in sports that boys enjoyed. Also, all of her friends she mentioned were boys. Typically a high-class family wouldn’t encourage their daughter to be a “tomboy” whereas that would be much more accepted in a lower-middle class urban family. The detail about the parents though is what stuck out to me the most. It grabbed my attention because in my mind I can remember all the kids who didn’t have parents that were around often. For some reason they always seemed to be different than I was and as I grew older I gravitated towards a different group of friends. It’s just something that a noticed as a child and picked up on again when I read this excerpt.
After reading the excerpt of the story, I am able to conclude that Annie Dillard grew up as one of the boys in the neighborhood. She seems fearless as she talks about playing football with the boys and having to give all that you’ve got throughout the entire game to help your team win. She doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that she isn’t a girly girl. She also plays baseball with the boys because she has such a strong arm from constantly practicing. Annie is a very independent girl that is not afraid to get dirty or hurt, and is just looking to have fun in ways that she sees fit. Her time is not wasted playing with dolls or painting her nails. She likes to be outside with the guys seeing into what kind of trouble they can get into. From the way that she talks about the different boys, you can tell that she is close to them and knows a lot about each of them. You can also gather that she lives in a time where kids were sent to play outside at all hours of the day. The aspect of her personality that stuck out most to me was her fearlessness. She isn’t afraid to tackle the bigger and faster boys in a game of football, or slide into home in a game of baseball. She doesn’t think twice about pelting passing cars with snowballs with all of her friends. Even when she is being chased by a stranger for a countless amount of blocks, ducking and diving over fences and through small holes in the bushes, she doesn’t seem to be afraid and views the whole ordeal almost as a game. She respects that the man could keep up with them for the long chase because she herself was very tired and out of breath.
Eric Beverly
Journal 2
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s an American Childhood. I am able to determine from the reading that she loved her childhood. She also enjoyed playing basketball and football, well learning how to play. I know growing up it took me a while to learn how to play football. I thought it was as easy as just getting the ball and running around with it. She also stated that “nothing girls did could even compare”. She was basically was saying she had more fun with the guys growing up. It seems like she wants to be one of the guys the way he courage and understanding of the game. That goes to show that anyone could get the concept of watching/playing football. As far as socio-culture she had a well-founded relationship with her parents. I can relate with that because I have a brother also in college and my parents try their best to make both our games, with him being in Alabama is kind of tough. I think her parents accepted the fact that she hung round boys but, then again she hung round girls her age. I know growing up you rarely found girls that played sports with guys. I know in middle school we had a girl on our team. The guys didn’t look at her different. Everyone was shocked she tried out for the team. What stood out the most was her confidants and determination. Most girls don’t have that will or mind- set to do something and not give up. I really enjoyed reading this excerpt it showed no matter what your gender is not to give up on something you love. I know after tearing both of my ACL I just wanted to give up on playing football. With the supporting cast I had I made it through both times. I would recommend this to others.
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, I see the author as a tom boy who likes to have fun outside. She loves to play football and baseball with the guys and play outside in the snow. I can tell she probably stays outside and plays all day with the boys until she has to come in and eat. Since all her friends in the story are guys she is a lot like them. She mentioned playing football with the guys and having to be physical and tackle them by throw her body at their legs. She also talks about playing baseball with the guys and how she has a mans arm. In the story you can tell she loves to be outdoors and play games. Also living in Pittsburgh it gets very cold so, since she cant play sports in the snow she likes to throw snowballs at cars. I think of her as a girl who likes to play with the guys and they are a good group of friends that can be a little rebellious but mainly they just do it for entertainment. She seems like a girl who is not intimidated by the other boys. She mentioned how physical she has to be in sports and how she tackles them fearlessly which is very unlike any normal seven year old girl. I can also tell that she loves her life and loves being a tom boy and hanging out with her guy friends. She says how if she were to die right there from that guy she would be happy. Even though she isn’t the normal seven year old girl she loves her life and loves sports and outdoors. Her childhood seems very similar to any normal boys childhood it reminds me a lot of how I was growing up.
By reading the excerpt from An American Childhood, I can tell that Annie Dillard was a very free-spirited child; she was ready to get her hands dirty, both literally and figuratively, and was a fearless individual. The fearlessness could have come from being raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which has some pretty tough neighborhoods, or it could have come from football. Dillard regards this sport as an “all or nothing” game, one can either take a chance of stopping the ball or falling on his/her face by going for the tackle, or he/she can just sit back and do nothing therefore aiding the opposing team. Just by learning to play the game, Dillard was able to apply that all or nothing mentality to everything she does in life. Since she never mentioned playing with any girls in the excerpt, I can assume that she didn’t fit in with them. This was probably because of her strong-mindedness, and willingness to get out in the sun and run around. Most other seven year old girls are too concerned with playing with dolls and having imaginary tea parties to think of going outside to play, which led Dillard to play with the boys in the neighborhood.
The detail that stuck out to me was the way she described her feelings on being caught by the man they threw snowballs at. She knew while running that if she got caught, she would get some kind of negative reaction, but the fact that the man was so determined to catch up to them intrigued her. She had never seen any adult with such a mindset that they would chase kids for 10 blocks just to prove a point, in fact, it seems she thought it to be impossible. So when the man finally grabbed them, she felt a kind of respect for him. It would seem as though her way of thinking about the situation was very childish and nonchalant, but to me it seemed as though she learned that she should never give up just because a fight has been put up, she should continue to fight back, because in the end there will be a great reward.
This was most definitely an intriguing excerpt to say the least. Annie Dillard doesn’t do the typical female things and is extremely into what she puts her mind to. The narrator relates to me personally in the excerpt because she likes to play predominately male sports. She gave everything she had in everything she did and reminds me of some of the personality’s I’ve run into on the football field. She is definitely a tomboy and that’s why she relates to guys more. Some of the things that she does I wouldn’t even do myself. The thrill of being chased by a stranger was exciting to her because it was somewhat of a challenge to get away. She strived for competition and pushing her limits and regular activities apparently couldn’t do that for her. She had a phenomenal and well spent childhood compared most others. She was genuinely happy and inhibited a mindset not normally associated with most girls at her age level. Furthermore she seemingly has only male friends, which discloses quite a bit about her persona and who she feels most comfortable with. I myself have trouble remembering every event that happened during my childhood with every year that passes, while the author on the other hand gives these stories in detail as if they happened just the other day. This just goes to show you how meaningful these events were to her and how much she cherished her childhood. Of course even though this is only an excerpt, you can tell that she is an extrovert and will most likely participate in events that will give her a sense of competitiveness and excitement. All in all Dillard is someone most people should look up too because she follows her heart and is not afraid to do what she finds fun and exciting, no matter what the social norm says.
After reading the excerpt, I learned the Annie Dillard had a very profound childhood She was the adventurous type not to stay inside and play video games but to go out and play with the neighborhood kids. Her childhood coincides with that of many children in a middle class neighborhood. She played football and baseball but also got into trouble just like any other child. It seemed however that her true joy did not lie in playing football and baseball, but her greatest joy came from throwing the snowballs at the cars. Despite that it was not the smartest thing to do, she continued to do it. She became friends with the other children in the neighborhood. I think that on some level everyone has had those moments that they can relate, doing something that you know is not right but you can continue to do it anyway and that slight heart attack you have when you realize that you have been caught. That moment of fear in her life when the man got out of the car and started chasing seem to be one of the greatest moments in her life. Even though she was good at it she played off the sports that she played but capitalized on the throwing of the snowballs. The way that she describes the event seems to make her believe that she enjoyed it and got some kind of a rush on it. But reading it at the end it seemed to be that she had learned her lesson despite the fact that she was happy with what she did. I did not think that she had expected the car to stop but put things in a whole different light when he chased them. Everyone has an adventurous childhood but she chose to write her childhood memories down and now we can read them. To me the story speaks that she comes from a middle class background an it says that she had a lot of fun during her childhood.
The excerpt from Dillard, in “An American Childhood” is a fun read; very enjoyable and entertaining. I’m not sure exactly why, but her personality reminded me most closely of the character Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. She has quite a repertoire of so called “boyish” personality traits, that more than likely set her apart from the majority of her peers. This does not seem to bother her though, she seemingly fits in perfectly with the neighborhood boys her age playing football and baseball. With an extremely competitive and active personality, the passage notes Annie’s love for football which explains Annie’s love and need for action and adventure. She was an adrenaline junky from a very young age shown by the way she likes the thrill of being chased and throwing snowballs at cars (even though she got in trouble) The part where she gets yelled at by man and chased through the neighborhood reminded me of a story my dad used to tell me about when he was a young boy. He said that when he was little, his parents would send him out to play with the neighborhood kids, and every once in a while they would pass a house with an old lady on a rocking chair who had a gun and would scare the kids! All in all Dillard is a great story-teller and anyone would get a kick out reading the extremely detailed accounts of her extremely exciting childhood which she remembers with such vivid and precise details and imagery. She sounds like she would’ve been a blast to have been around and she’s definitely a lot tougher than I am. She thoroughly enjoys a challenge and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her, a quality that I know a lot of us envy and wish we had for ourselves.
Robert Tullius
After reading the excerpt, I gained knowledge of the fact that the author grew up doing “boy things.” She liked playing sports and hanging out with the boys in the neighborhood. She’s very athletic and loves to play football. What intrigues her the most about football is tackling. The way she describes it definitely proves that football is her number one sport. Growing up in her Pittsburgh neighborhood, the author was raised under different interests and activities compared to girls her age. Throwing snowballs at people seemed to be one of the fun things to do during the winter time. I feel like even though she may have been loved that she thinks her parents wish she was a boy. In the excerpt, she mentioned her parents really liked the boys that lived down the street. That was the only thing she seemed to mention about them which I thought was interesting. The reason why I know these things about the author is because the details in her story are very intricate. She put vivid detail in everything she was trying to explain. From tackling someone in football to the way she made her perfect snowball, the details were endless. The detail that stuck out to me the most was at the beginning of the passage when she was explaining tackling someone in football. I could tell the passion and the drive she has for football and sports in general. What she was talking about was the truth. The emotion behind failing at tackling someone is what usually holds people back from making the jump. I caught that what she talked about in the beginning of the passage tied in with the man chasing her and her friends through the neighborhood; how the thought just crossed her mind as she was “running for her life.”
After reading the excerpt from Annie Dillard’s “An American Children”, I can conclude that Annie Dillard is committed to whatever she decides to do. She begins the story talking about how she was not like any normal girl, that she plays sports like all the other boys her age. It showed how her parents raised her to not care what others thought about her, and to never give up on what she wanted in life. Based on her Socio-cultural background you can tell her community was full of younger boys, but because of that it just made her stronger as an individual.
You can tell from that she was brave, even as a young child. And I think that was the detail that stuck out he most to me. Being brave is something that most adults can even do, let alone a young girl. When you are little you tend to think along the lines, “ I can do this and never get caught”, but that never ends up being the actual case. Throwing those snow balls into the oncoming traffic was brave enough, let alone the man coming out and chasing the two of them. The fact that she was running through the cold air trying to escape the pursuer shows her persistence through everything. The fact that she kept running through the backyards, trying to avoid the pursuer, showed is committed and that she will not give up. Annie Dillard was a strong willed young kid, and that strong personality stuck with her entire life. She become a great writer and not only did this strong personality shine through, but also her uniqueness. Growing up she was the odd one out allowing her to become creative in what she did. And that’s exactly what she did with her life. She grew into her attributes: Strong, brave, and unique.
I think the point of American child is trying to get across to us is whatever you do you should do it to the best of your ability. The beginning of the story started off light heartedly describing what her childhood was like how she played football with the guys and even basketball. But in the winter they couldn’t play these sports because it was snowing and this allowed them to pursue other mischievous activities like throwing snowballs at cars. On one particular morning on that the narrator will never forget it had snowed more than it usually did with a whooping 6 inches of fresh snow so all the kids gathered outside to a hill that overlooked a street. The street would be busy with cars and all day the kids would stay at a good distance and throw snowballs at cars. This particular day they threw an ice ball at the drivers windshield and it cracked the window and for the first time they had ever seen the man stopped his car and got out of the car. The kids didn’t expect him to actually get out and before they knew it the man started chasing them and the kids all split up because he couldn’t chase them all and it was every kid for himself. When she saw that all the kids had vanished and the only one left was Mikey she followed him just so that he wouldn’t be running away alone and with her luck the man begins to chase them both. So they run with everything they have first over a few fences but when they notice the man keeps following them the see it as a game of will. Who wanted it more and they lesson she learned from sports was that no matter what you do you have to put all your efforts full heartedly into what you do or else you have room for failure that is still within your control of preventing. So when the man eventually did catch up to them she had no disappointment so gave it her all and she didn’t care what kind of horrible punishment she could receive or the scolding that would come from this man she gave it everything and the only thing this man could say after running all of Pittsburgh was “You stupid kids”, and this left a lasting impression. Who would go through all that trouble just to say that simple phrase I think that was solely for his pride that compelled him to do this and this is the valuable lesson she learned have pride in what you do and be the best at whatever you set yourself to do don’t do a mediocre job at it if your capable of great things.