Sleepy Hollow: Odd Darkness

Francisco Perez-Salamero                                                                   Perez-Salamero 1    Mrs. Meadows
English G/H
25 October 201
 
                                                         Sleepy Hollow
 

             "Well, Mrs. Tassel thanks for the food and the shelter. Make sure Katrina studies her novels so her marks rise." I looked back as I closed the old wooden door behind me.
 
             "I'll make sure she does, Mr. Crane. Thank you for staying. I hope you found our land affable," Mrs. Tassel answered coldly; I think she took my words amiss... but, boy   did they have a lot of land and riches.
 
            Feeling quite despondent of myself, thoughts from my failures to attract Katrina last night at the dinner table with the Tassels haunted me as I made my way through the interminable passage leading back to center and most populated part of Tarry Town... Unlike the reclusive farmland the Tassels own, the only other place you’ll ever find sage is at the border of the Hudson. As easy as it was to spot the sun in the sky, it was as easy to hear Brom Bones’ horse galloping behind me a few yards away, what does he want now? I wondered.  

             “Hey! Crane! ” He yelled at me impelling his horse to get in my way. Even though he seemed quite tidy and appealing, he was somewhat irascible to me. “I saw you leaving Katrina’s house! Didn’t I make it clear enough that it’s going to be me and her? Not you,”

            “Can we please do this another time? Please? You interrupted my profound moment of thought,” I entreated.

            “Ok, just this once,” He spat at me and fled. His manners are just so abhorrent to me.

            Finally reaching the schoolhouse, I prepare my plans for the students to study and be quizzed on Thursday… Knock… Knock…

            “Yes? Who is it?” I curiously asked from inside.

            “Mail,” the voice outside answered.

            “Slip it under the door please,” I earnestly said.

            Deliver to Ichabod Crane. It said on the front flap of the cream envelope written with good dark handwriting. An invitation maybe, from who may this be? Without any care at all I ripped open the cream envelope to find a cordial and formal invitation to the Tassel’s house on Saturday evening. They didn’t mention any of this at the house.

            It was now Saturday and I had a place to be at, a party. With high expectations of the upcoming evening I was meant to be at, I picked out the most appropriate clothes for me to wear. I borrowed a horse to serve me as transport to Katrina’s house whose name was Gunpowder, he was blind of one eye and quite old to still be alive. Even though they tried to make him look strong and resistant, his tremulous hind legs looked a bit skinny for a horse and quite right for a deer.

            I arrived at the party to find myself surrounded by men looking far worse than I did; I guess I’m the better man. As I tried to make an approach at Katrina, she turns around and unmistakably rejects me and possibly even my being there. I hurry out the door and untie Gunpowder from the wooden stable.

            “Well, so much for an invitation I was probably not even meant to receive by the looks of it,” I talk to myself and go into a tirade.

            Pacing slowly through the somewhat odd darkness of the night, I find things to be a bit quieter than I expected, but that’s probably me just being crazy. Trying to ignore myself through what’s left of the way back home, I reach Major Andre’s tree which is said to be haunted but it’s not the tree what got me so scared, behind the tree and looming around was a large and dark figure… It can’t be! Those are just legends and myths! I didn’t even have a single drink at the party! But it was now true what was now chasing me through the pitch-black woods of the Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman. After having reverberated the simple question of “who goes there” the dark figure sped towards me in the intents of who knows what. The last thing I remember before I was hit by a flying head torn from its body was a headless horseman throwing me one. Lucky me he only haunts those at Sleepy Hollow since that is just a place I’ll never be at again.

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie Reflection

Francisco PS

                                                                                    October 3, 2011

                                                                                                                     

Reflection: Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie

           

Since the book “Drums Girls and Dangerous Pies” by Jordan Sonnenblick was recommended to me, I could tell there had to be something good in it because after reading the first couple of chapters I could actually relate to the story. This is because he was facing the same things a normal teenager would struggle with. The stories main character Steven is having trouble with the normal teenage problems like homework, grades, parents and many more until it so happened that a single car ride to the hospital would turn his world into chaos, his little brother Jeffrey was diagnosed with a shocking case of leukemia. I can sort of understand and feel what he is going through because it could happen to anybody you know.

Even though the title is very simple, by reading it I could tell what the book may be about without having to judge it by its cover the, but as I started getting deeper into the book, it has a deeper meaning; you just have to dig a little bit deeper. Since the book is titled “Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pies”, as I read it came clear to me that these were the thing that established a connection between Steven and Jeffrey other than being brother. Jeffrey highly looks up to Steven like a little brother would normally do, that’s why the book is titled this way, because Jeffrey looks up to Steven drumming, doesn’t really look up to his skills with girls, and together they invented a mixture of un-edible ingredients which they later called dangerous pie.

One thing that did surprise me was the way the author would give away reasons to why someone in this situation would just be torn apart in millions of directions sitting down and sobbing while the people surrounding you help you stand back up and continue through your struggle. At almost the very ending I started to think that Jeffrey would die since cancer is such a tough thing to deal with, especially since he was a little kid.

Now that I have finished this excellent book I believe that it will forever remain in my consciousness since it gave so much to things to value and think about in life. I am definitely willing to say that “Drums Girls & Dangerous pies” is for sure one of the best books I have ever read if one ever dares not to value the things he gets that might yet not seem so important at one time but could then mean the world to you and those around you.

Left Handed Glove

Left Handed Glove

Taking a deep breath and walking back from what I had done, I sit down and sob in my own misery. It was raining both inside and outside, my hand was dripping blood and the sky was falling apart- so was I. Matt was only eleven! He was smart, athletic, funny and friendly… why is it only a tan, worn, old, and used mitt that I get to keep from him, why? I remember walking into his dark room one night after eating some crunchy New York pizza, he had the glove in front of him and a green pen clasped into his left hand. “What are you doing, Matt?” I asked him. He did not answer me back; he just lifted a large book titled “Famous Authors and Poems”. I walked over to him and looked at the mitt that was once Frank Colman’s, he was a New York outfielder for the 1946 New York Yankees team. I got the mitt from him when he was signing autographs at a sporting goods store. Matt had used green ink to write over the fingers and the pocket of the mitt, he was writing down his favorite poems on it.

“Why are you doing this?” I grabbed his shoulders and looked down into the mitt.

“I get pretty bored when no one is batting. So I decided it would be better if I had something to read instead of just standing there in the blazing sun,” I remembered him say.

Unfortunately, death has taken Matt from me; I still have a hole in my heart, one I will never be able to seal as long as I live. He died from leukemia when we were visiting up at Maine on the summer of 1946, the 8^th of July. Even though he was two years younger than me, he was many times smarter than I was. Teachers would write my mom home saying how nice it was to have him in class, that’s how smart he was. So they say that people with redhead get mad often but no, he never got mad at anyone. Actually, he was the nicest member in my family. The mitt was his most valued possession; I think he would have wanted for me to keep it. He never told me why he had written this specific poem called “Bond and Free” by Robert Frost right in the middle of the glove, the poem went like this:

Love has earth to which she clings 

With hills and circling arms about— 

Wall within wall to shut fear out. 

But Thought has need of no such things, 

For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

 

On snow and sand and turf, I see 

Where Love has left a printed trace 

With straining in the world’s embrace. 

And such is Love and glad to be. 

But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

 

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom 

And sits in Sirius’ disc all night, 

Till day makes him retrace his flight, 

With smell of burning on every plume, 

Back past the sun to an earthly room.

 

His gains in heaven are what they are. 

Yet some say Love by being thrall 

And simply staying possesses all 

In several beauty that Thought fares far 

To find fused in another star.”

I can only guess this was his favorite poem, since I could definitely see his lips moving to the words of the poem as we played catch or fooled around. I take the mitt everywhere I can, it makes me feel closer to the memories I still hold of Matt. Whenever I look at it I don’t put it on, it makes me feel like it doesn’t belong to me in some way but I still don’t think Frank Colman’s glove will fit my hand when I stand at 6’2 and Frank stands at 5’11 according to my baseball card. Even though its being three years from his death now, I still feel like I just got the news from his death… devastated, as if something was ripped away from me. The only thing that makes me feel better is the old mitt; he used to play with it every day at the ball park whenever it was not raining, surprisingly the green ink would not wash away, not even to this day.