#What will happen to the shoemaker in my town when he dies?
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random-conspiracy · 7 months ago
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FIGHT FOR THE ARTS AND CRAFTS!!!
FIGHT FOR THE LEGACY OF A CULTURE!!!
The book binders, the shoemakers, the secrets of fabric and wood. What will happen when all is automatized, what will happen if we grow far and far away from the things we use and do.
Fight to keep alive the legacy. The wisdom and knowledge macerated by generations. Someone has to carry the torch!
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cruger2984 · 9 months ago
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THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT JOHN BOSCO (aka Don Bosco) The Apostle, Father and Teacher of the Youth Feast Day: January 31
"Enjoy yourself as much as you like - if only you keep from sin."
The founder of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (popularly known as the Salesians of Don Bosco) was born Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco, to a peasant family in Castelnuovo d'Asti (Castelnuovo Don Bosco), Piedmont, Kingdom of Sardinia, twelve miles near Turin, Italy on the feast of the Assumption of Mary - August 15, 1815. He was the youngest son of Francesco Bosco and Margherita Occhiena, and had two older brothers, Antonio, and Giuseppe.
The Boscos of Becchi were farmhands of the Moglian Family, and John was born into a time of great shortage and famine in the Piedmontese countryside, following the devastation wrought by the Napoleonic Wars and drought in 1817.
In 1825, when he was nine years old, he dreamed of an army of youngsters, who turned from ferocious animals into gentle lambs. The Blessed Virgin Mary, with her hands on his head, said: 'What you have seen happen to these animals, you will have to do with my children.'
John started gathering the children of his town, teaching them catechism and bringing them to church. He would often delight them with acrobatic and circus tricks.
John was sixteen when he entered the seminary at Chieri, next to the Church of the Immacolata Concezione (San Fillippo). His parish priest was convinced of his vocation because John was able to repeat word by word all his homilies. After six years of study, he has ordained a priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin in 1841 at the age of twenty-six.
John was assigned to Turin, where he energetically worked for the prisoners, the youth, and the street children. For them, he opened the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales, where they could learn a trade and the basics of Christian life. He chose this patron saint for his gentleness, and because in the hall of the house donated by a rich woman for his oratory, there was his portrait.
In his tireless apostolate, Don Bosco was constantly supported by his mother. In his effort to make honest citizens and good Christians, he opened workshops for shoemaking, tailoring, and printing. Don Bosco was so convinced of the power of the mass-media that he usually spent half of the night writing books and magazines. His motto was: 'Give me the souls and keep all the rest.'
In 1859, he founded the Salesian Society for the education of the boys; and in 1872, he founded the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco) together with St. Maria Domenica Mazzarello, for the education of the girls. In order to support the work of both congregations, John organized the Association of Salesian Cooperators in 1876, who followed in their homes and state of life of the Salesian spirituality.
Don Bosco died on January 31, 1888 in Turin at the age of 72 due to bronchitis, and his funeral was attended by thousands. He is beatified on June 2, 1929 and is canonized as a saint by Pope Pius XI on April 1, 1934 - Easter Sunday. His major shrine can be found at the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians in Turin, Italy.
In 2002, Pope St. John Paul II was petitioned to declare Don Bosco the Patron of Stage Magicians. John Bosco had pioneered the art of what is today called 'Gospel Magic,' using magic and other feats to attract attention and engage the youth.
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doveboycreature · 6 months ago
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PLEASE post about your past life as a shoemaker. that is just such an intriguing thing to leave in the tags
Ok well it’s a very long story but I can sort of remember my past life. I’m not 100% sure if it’s real or some kind of delusion I made up as a coping mechanism but I like to think it’s real bc I have never had any other delusions and because I’ve felt some inexplicable connections my whole life. This timeline was made through me researching stuff and following what I felt most connected to and whatever made me feel some kind of emotional reaction and made the most sense. So idk how much is real and how much is made up bc throughout the years it’s all tied deeply into my gender identity and my kinks. But anyway, the basic rundown is I was born in 1770 or sometime around then in a town called gravesend outside of london (i actually visited it last summer and it did make me sort of emotional but mostly sad because everything was so different. except for the one street I could recognize with an old church at the end.) I was raised mostly by my older brother, but I can’t really remember why or what happened to my parents. When I was 14 I was sent to be a cordwainer’s (shoemaker) apprentice. The master I worked for was really really horrible and I ran away only 2 years in. I walked all the way to London and ended up getting picked up by this guy who had some kind of gang and helped me learn how to steal. (I think we were like in love or something possibly but he was not a good person.) but when I was 17 or so we ended up having a violent argument and i accidentally killed him in self defense. I don’t know what the argument was about. I think he came home drunk and pulled a broken bottle on me. Then, I was so terrified of his friends finding out and killing me that I went that night and stowed away on a ship leaving the port. I was found eventually but they let me work on the ship and it was actually a good experience. Everything after that is kind of hazy. I might have died or something but I really can’t say
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radiojamming · 4 years ago
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Can you tell us anything more about John Hartnell's time on the Voltage?
Hell yeah, I can! I have some pictures from the log books I can post later, too. I legit sat for H O U R S reading tiny handwriting from the master’s logs. Most of the logs were lists of chores, punishments, notes on the weather, and any major events. John’s time on the Volage can be divided pretty neatly in half, between the ship’s North American tour, and its Irish Sea patrol, all between 1841-45. 
The North American part was probably pretty exciting for him, considering that he’d been a shoemaker since he was thirteen years old. Compared to what his brother had been up to on the Volage (the Aden Expedition, Battle of Chuenpi, etc.), it focused less on military ventures and more on transportation and patrol. The first major thing it did was in December of 1841, when it accompanied the HMS Warspite and HMS Thalia in taking the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV to England to attend the christening of the Prince of Wales. After that, it scurried over to Plymouth to get new fittings, and then took off for the Caribbean. 
A lot happened in the Caribbean, and reading through the log books (always written in very non-emotional language, but still entertaining) paints a very eclectic picture of their activities. The Volage went to Jamaica first, awaiting orders until they were ordered to go to Saint Martha to pick up... $800,000 in gold. Legit, that sat on the Volage for two months until they dropped it off in Port Royal. By then, half the crew was incredibly ill with a mix of diseases including what might have been dysentery. Amazingly, for all of John’s terrible luck, he doesn’t appear on the sick list, even as one of the lieutenant’s eventually died as well as the clerk. 
They scurried back and forth across the Caribbean from January of 1842 until they departed for Halifax, Nova Scotia later that summer. (Land of @theiceandbones!) In all honesty, the Volage didn’t get up to much during it’s time in Halifax. They didn’t necessarily have a mission, but it does make for some really entertaining reading! There was a lot of shore leave, for instance. Here are some of the notes I wrote on my read-through between the Caribbean and Halifax (which is from ADM 54/312):
Mondays and Fridays are mandatory clothes-washing days.
8th of July 1842 - “Punished Michael Logan with 48 [!] lashes for Disobedience of Orders and Insolence”
12th of July 1842, 6pm - “Committed to the deep the Body of Samuel Marvin (AB) Deceased.” / “Departed this life William Baillie (boy) - Buried at sea on the 13th.”
18th of July 1842, 10:50 pm - “Heard the report of several Guns from the North” [in Halifax]
20th of July 1842 - Halifax Citadel visit and the burial of Robert Webb (boy), Samuel Gibbon, John Barnes, and Samuel Brummage (carpenter’s mate) on shore
Godden reports that several warm nights, sailors were permitted to use their hammocks and sleep on the beach! (I put a smiley face next to my note here!)
Most of their Halifax mooring was spent cleaning. Lots of repainting, holystoning, repairing, etc.
Multiple discharges for “uselessness” and “disgrace”. 
The latter note is really interesting, considering that none other than Charles Dickens visited Halifax that same year, and made note of sailors making total idiots out of themselves on oysters and champagne. Indeed, there are plenty of punishments recorded for that summer for drunkenness, insubordination, and desertion, again sometimes up to 48 lashes. (I’ll post a picture of the log just to confirm that.) On a high note, John Hartnell wasn’t punished once! And believe me, I looked!
They did have to have some repair work done to fix a leak in October before scurrying back down south with the “Squadron”. Godden makes some pretty boring notes about looking at the United States coast (as in essentially saying, “Yep, there it is!”) before they hang tight to the coast of Mexico. 
The Volage appears to have been outfitted for doing survey work, which is part of what they did for the next few months. Between that, mooring for absolutely nothing, and hanging out with slave ship hunters (I like to think they high-fived the HMS Racer at some point) their zig-zag order of ports of call are:
Barbados > Puerto Rico > Grenada > St. Vincent > Jamaica > St. Lucie > Antigua > Jamaica (long-term Port Royal mooring) > Haiti 
By early 1843, the Volage was headed back home. They docked in Plymouth for a time before getting their next orders for the Admiralty for the apparently much-maligned Irish Sea duty. At this point, Captain William Dickson had a temporary replacement for the deceased Lt. Davey, but eventually, that lieutenant had to leave as well. Captain Dickson did get a note from the Admiralty that he was to get his replacement at the Cove of Cork, and according to the sudden burst of tiny handwriting at the bottom of the page on Tuesday, August 29th, 1843, Captain Dickson totally forgot about that. Literally, the note for the day is kind of falling off the page from squeezing it in, but reads: “Read the Commission of Lieut J Irving”.
Because Lieutenant John Irving hopped on board as a new replacement, thus using those sweet, sweet letters of his to describe the next few months. He was absolutely meticulous about dating his letters, and having them on hand in his memoir made it easy to line up with Godden’s notes in the master’s log, confirming everything between the two of them. This time, Irish patrol got kind of exciting.
First, here’s Irving talking about joining the Volage, saying much nicer things about Capt. Dickson considering the captain was probably going, “Oh shit right I forgot we were doing this.”
“To my great joy I found the ‘Volage’ at anchor here. I was afraid she might have gone somewhere else. I went on board direct from the steamer, and was introduced to Sir William Dickson, the Captain; rigged myself in a blue coat and a pair of epaulettes; the hands were turned up, and the Captain read my commission appointing me lieutenant of the ship to the ship’s company. There are three of us. I am the second in seniority. Our mess consists of seven--viz., three lieutenants, one master, surgeon, a lieutenant of marines. They are all very good fellows. I was three years messmate of one of them in a former ship, so am comfortable in that respect.”
Irving noted that the officers were frequently invited to parties in Cork (”I could be at parties every day if I liked;”), and Godden does say that the rest of the crew were given shore leave fairly frequently, even though they didn’t have enough officers to allow them to leave as often. 
For the next four months, the Volage remained at Cork, doing patrol with several other man-of-war’s. On land, there were frequent clashes between the Protestants and the Catholics, but more importantly, there were the Repealers following Daniel O’Connell’s urging to repeal the Acts of the Union and re-establish the independent Kingdom of Ireland. Between Irving and Godden, the image of this time from the perspective of the Volage is one of a lot of bloody rumors and high tension (a Protestant curate was killed, houses were being burned down). However, O’Connell’s followers were very civil to the sailors and actually invited some of the Volage officers to visit their homes. Irving called their hospitality “quite Highland”. 
The Volage was temporarily relieved of its patrol in December, and returned to Plymouth by January of 1844 for refitting and repair work after shearing off part of her keel. Godden and Irving both noted that sailors and officers were boarded on a hulk, or a non-sailing ship. Godden also noted that several sailors were permitted leave to go visiting nearby. (John Hartnell did have family in Plymouth, and Thomas Hartnell may have been visiting the area at the same time, if a pet theory of mine holds up.) 
They were back in the Cove of Cork by February, with the Volage now as the flagship. During a period between February and June, the Volage frequently made trips between Cork and the town of Bantry, after further pro-Repealer agitation began to raise tensions once more. Godden’s log doesn’t say much on the subject aside from weather reports and notes on officers leaving the ship to attend parties, major gatherings in town (there’s a really interesting bit from Irving on scaring the bejeezus out of a group of paraders and stealing the Waterford city flag), and switching out officers. However, the tensions once again didn’t amount to much more than far-off reports of violence and a few observations of pissed-off “pisantry”. The Volage did return to Plymouth for Christmas before returning for a short turn in Cork, and then being paid off completely. The log for that topic shows that John Hartnell was paid off on February 1st, 1845.
As far as what life would have been like for John Hartnell on the Volage, it’s hard to say for sure since, once again, Godden’s logs are impersonal. However, he was responsible for recording all punishments, injuries, illnesses, and deaths, of which there was no lack. He also kept meticulous note of what chores were to be done on particular days, as well as drills. I noticed there was a lot of repetition in the chore schedule, and there was a slight uptick in sailors suddenly taking ill with “unknown” illnesses about two and a half years in, especially on days that had chores requiring a little more elbow grease.
But I think, as I said, this would have been very exciting for someone like John. After all, he voluntarily signed up for the Erebus four months after signing off on the Volage. Unfortunately, we don’t have any letters to or from him that might hint to how he felt during this time, so we have to take it from his actions rather than his words. I like to think he enjoyed himself.
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junie-bugg · 5 years ago
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Prospects and Propriety - Chapter Two
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Summary: Everlark Jane Austen AU
Katniss Everdeen and her younger sister Prim are the adopted daughters of Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, a wealthy man with no biological heirs. By the rules of Panem society, an older sibling must be married before the younger can wed. In a time when women have no means of making their own living, marriage is the only way for Katniss to save her sister from destitution and set her up for a happy marriage of her own. Katniss sets her sights on Mr. Gale Hawthorne, a wealthy man who just moved to Whitley and who seems to have his eye on her. But what of the poor baker’s boy who once took a beating to save her life?
Read here on Tumblr or on my AO3 account: izzacrosswriting
Warning: I do plan on this series getting a lil smutty. There will be graphic depictions of violence, sex, and possibly death. I’m still working everything out:)
Nature ambiance(s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9uyQI3pF0&t=1694s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjUhZ1Yy7Y
Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQbx-OkfN-M
(If you want to listen to this song on Spotify it's called Symphony No.5 in C Sharp Minor: 4. Adagietto (Sehr Iangsam))
Word Count: 3125
Chapter Two
Prim and I have the next day off of lessons. We’ve been homeschooled ever since we came to live with Haymitch, but the weekends are saved purely for whatever we see fit to fill them with. For me, that’s mostly hunting and being out in the woods, unless the weather is bad, and sometimes not even then. 
If I decide to stay at home I usually lounge around with a book and see what Prim is up to. It’s mostly knitting, dress-up, or playing with the ugly cat Haymitch let her keep a few years back. Prim named him Buttercup, claiming that his matted, ruddy coat matched the bright yellow of the flowers she so adored. I had wanted to drown the thing in a bucket when we caught him stealing scraps from the kitchen, but Haymitch had laughed, even picked the thing up by the scruff of his neck and shook him around. 
“Look at this little guy, sweetheart. He’s a survivor. We can’t kill him!” He had placed the dirty, mewling kitten into Prim’s arms and the thing had hissed at me. I was worried he’d give Prim some kind of disease but he never did. I don’t feel gratitude towards him though. Only suspicion. It could still happen. 
When I want to be alone I go to my greenhouse. Really it’s Prim’s and my greenhouse, but ever since she found maggots in the compost pile nearly two years ago, she hasn’t stepped foot in there.  The greenhouse is small, maybe a third the size of my bedroom, but it’s peaceful. Especially when it storms and I can hear every hollow beat of the raindrops on its glass roof. It’s situated on the edge of the grounds by the tree line that morphs into the large forested hill behind Victor Greene, Haymitch’s estate. Over the years I’ve planted herbs and flowers and medicinal plants I’ve found on my journeys into the woods. The plants do well here in the rows of dark soil I’ve fortified with compost and fertilizer. The whole place smells of earthy rot and there’s something about how sunlight scatters lazily through the frosted windows that calms me. There’s a nook on the far side of the greenhouse, past all the plants, where I’ve scattered some quilts and pillows on a wide triangular window ledge. It’s a perfect place to read or sleep. Or sing. 
This is the only place where I let myself sing. I don’t even do it in the woods, always afraid someone else taking a stroll will hear me or that I’ll scare away game. Ever since Prim and I were placed under Haymitch’s care, really ever since our dad died, I refuse to sing in front of others. Maybe it’s because I’m shy and I don’t like people listening to my voice swelling and breaking on the high notes. Or maybe I’m lying to myself and I don’t sing in front of others because it’s too painful to remember a time when my life was filled with music. Mountain aires and lullabies and love songs, all sung by my father. I guess I don’t like breaking apart when there’s an audience. But when I’m alone I can shatter beneath the notes for a time, before I’m needed back up at the house. 
Today, however, instead of knitting or playing hide and seek in the gardens, Prim has informed me she wants to walk to the village. “You need new ribbons for the ball!” She squeaks as I button up her light pink dress from behind. We have servants available who help us dress or bathe or brush our hair but I always like helping Prim myself. She looks like a tiny little princess with her frilly dress and her curls pulled back with a pearl white ribbon. In contrast, I look plain in a forest green frock and my light brown shawl. 
“I told you, Prim. I’m not going.” I struggle with the last button. Prim has been going through a growth spurt and soon she’ll be too big for this dress. I feel sad, watching my little sister growing up so fast. 
“I heard Mrs. Winthrop and Ms. Trinket talking and they said you had to go,” She’s grinning so hard I can see the slight gap between her two front teeth. “Because Mr. Hawthorne is going to be there.” 
Ah, yes. My supposed husband-to-be. So even Prim has heard about Ms. Trinkets’ ridiculous arrangements. A man with that much money has his pick of the litter when it comes to choosing brides. I’m not ugly, but I’m no exquisite beauty either. Not like some of the girls I see around Whitley. I have no fortune of my own, really no status either besides being Haymitch’s ward and that will go up in smoke the second he dies. Most likely Mr. Hawthorne will look right through me and move on. But the news that I’m being forced to attend the public ball worries me. The whole village will be there. Including him. The baker’s boy. 
Maybe some new ribbons aren’t such a bad idea. 
We turn down an offer for the carriage and instead walk along the main road into Whitley. My boots have barely brushed the cobblestone sidewalks when Prim is dragging me into the seamstresses’ shop. The dressmaker, Cinna Ludgate, and the tailor, I think her name is Portia Peever, both turn to welcome us. Prim tells Mr. Ludgate about my need for new ribbons and in a flash he pulls down the display from the ceiling, winking at me as he walks back to the counter. 
There are so many to choose from. Streams of all colors flutter between my outstretched fingertips like butterfly’s wings. I see ribbons of frilly lace, satin, velvet, and even silk. My eyes land on a simple, white cloth ribbon with a delicate embroidered lavender pattern. I hold it up for Prim’s inspection and she declares I have to buy two in case I manage to get one dirty before the ball. 
I’ve just handed Mrs. Peever the money for the ribbons when the bell over the door rings. In walks Ms. Delly Cartright, one of Prim’s closest friends, and her older sister, Ms. Marianne Cartright. Their father is the village shoemaker, so they’re well known and well-liked by almost everybody. Delly is Prim’s age which gives them plenty to talk about. Prim grabs a hold of Delly and begins showing her the latest shipment of buttons Mr. Ludgate has displayed. 
Marianne is one year younger than me but we’ve never exchanged more than simple pleasantries. I dread small talk but from my personal experience, a trip into town wouldn’t be deemed official without at least one awkward encounter. 
“Are you coming to the ball, Ms. Everdeen? You missed the last one,” Marianne asks. She’s absolutely gorgeous, with big, blue doe eyes and a pouty mouth. Her nose is small and her figure slender. She is what they call a “country belle” in Town. I know at least five love songs written about girls like her. I expect in a few years Prim will grow to be one herself. 
“The dancing was splendid. I do hope you’re coming next week,” She continues.
I hold up my ribbons in response. “My tutor Ms. Trinket won’t let me miss it.” I force my mouth into a smile. 
“Oh,” Marianne’s eyes have settled on my ribbons. They’re probably a tad dull for her taste seeing as there were velvets and silks to choose from, but I like the simple flower design. The white cloth paired with the purple and green thread looks pretty. “Well, as my darling mother always says: simple never goes out of style.” She smiles up at me but the warmth doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “My sister and I are here for my dress fitting. I can’t wait to show everyone what Mr. Ludgate made me for the ball. It’s a custom piece!” She practically squeals. I nod and bid her goodbye, waving Prim over so we can leave. I breathe a sigh of relief as we exit the shop. I hate girl talk. 
With our main objective for coming to Whitley carried out, my feet automatically turn towards home, but Prim has other ideas. “Can we look at the cakes, Katniss?” She begs. She’s like a little puppy. I can’t refuse, though I grow more anxious with every step closer to the bakery we get. 
I know what this is. A look at the cakes in the window leads to Prim asking to go inside. It’s happened before and I’ve been lucky enough to avoid him. He works alongside his parents and two older brothers anyway. What are the chances that he’ll be manning the counter and not the ovens in the back? 
Prim pulls me through the bakery doors and runs to press her face against the display case. I hear a call of “I’ll be right there!” from the back, followed by a grunt and the shuffling of boxes. I join Prim and am just starting to admire the selection of pastries when I hear a quiet gasp and look up. 
It's him. The baker’s youngest son. I don't know him by name but I remember him. Of course, I remember him. I can almost feel the icy sheets of rain and the hollow numbness of hunger from that horrible day as I meet his gaze. 
Our father had died three months earlier. He had been a poor wheat farmer but the income from the harvest was enough to support a small household. My mother traded plants and home remedies to supplement what our empty pockets couldn’t buy. One winter, my father had been kicked in the head by his horse. My mother did everything she could but even as young as I was, I knew he had died before he hit the ground. After that my mother stopped eating. She just sat in bed and stared at the walls while her children turned to skin and bone. I did everything to try and rouse her but it was no use. With our father dead so too was her will to live. 
At eleven I became the sole provider of the family. I ventured into town alone to sell that damn horse, some old jewelry, and even dresses of my mother’s from her merchant days, but the money ran out quickly and there was more to buy than food. Our hearth sat cold, unused, and wanting of wood, and we resorted to rubbing ourselves raw to keep warm. We stopped attending school in the village, afraid that a teacher would see how hollow we were becoming and would whisk us away to the orphanage. I had seen orphans in the schoolyard, their faces empty and their shoulders slumped in defeat. I would never let that happen to Prim. 
We had eaten nothing but dried mint leaves in water for three days before I decided to try selling some of Prim’s old baby clothes in town. The clothes were threadbare and faded so nobody had wanted them. My arms were shaking so violently from cold and malnourishment that I ended up dropping them in a puddle. I decided to leave them there, afraid that if I bent over I wouldn’t be able to get back up. 
I found myself stumbling around behind a row of brick buildings. The rain had started and I was soaked to the bone. The smell of baking bread carried over the frigid air and I realized I was behind the bakery. The back door was open and I stood, trancelike, basking in the warm glow of the ovens before a thought floated through my foggy head. Maybe they had food scraps in their trash. A crust of bread or rotting vegetables, something only my family was desperate enough to eat. I lifted the tops off of the bins and my hopes died when I saw that their insides were heartbreakingly bare. 
Suddenly, I heard a woman screeching. It was the baker’s wife. She spat remarks about how she was sick of people going through her trash bins and if I didn’t leave she would call law enforcement. As I dropped the lids and backed away I saw a boy peeking out from behind his mother’s skirts. I recognized him from school but we had never talked. 
With my final hope gone I slumped against a scrubby little apple tree in their yard. My knees buckled and I slipped down into the mud. I would rather die than go home empty-handed to Prim’s gaunt face and my mother’s sickly, unblinking eyes. 
I heard a commotion from the bakery and then the ring of metal on flesh. 
“Feed it to the pigs you worthless creature! No one decent will buy burnt bread!” The witch screeched. There was the boy again, come out the back door clutching two blackened loaves. A bright red mark shone on his cheek and my heart twisted when I realized his mother must have hit him. He looked between me and the pigpen, and then glanced back towards the door. His mother must have gone up to front to serve a customer because then I heard him sloshing his way through puddles to get to me. 
“Take them!” He urged, pressing the loaves into my skeletal hands. “Take them! Go!” As quickly as he came he was gone, back into the kitchens. I watched him disappear. As he closed the door only then did I realize what he had done for me. 
Two loaves of bread! And they weren’t even that burned, really only the crusts had been damaged. I quickly pressed them to the skin under my shirt and hurried home. The searing heat from the loaves roused something within me. I couldn’t die. Not when I had Prim to take care of.
I dropped the loaves on the table and stopped my sister from savagely tearing a chunk off for herself. I sat her down, forced our mother to join us, and then began scraping off the blackened bits. That night we feasted on two slices of bread each, afraid so much food might make us sick. The loaves were hearty, filled with nuts and bits of cranberry. I had never tasted anything so good in my entire life. 
 As I predicted, it was a teacher that found out about our situation. Upon our absence at school, she had come looking for us and found Prim and I living in squalor with a mother that was too sick to care. I thought that was it, that we were to be sent to the orphanage now and our mother taken away to an institution. But a man by the name of Haymitch Abernathy, wealthy and lacking a family of his own, intervened. He had heard of our misfortunes from hushed gossip around the village and had petitioned to adopt us. Our mother was eventually sent to an institution by the sea and we’ve lived with Haymitch, fed and clothed and taken care of, ever since. 
The baker’s boy saved our lives that day. Surely I would have given up and died under that apple tree if it wasn’t for the kindness he showed me. I owe him everything. And because of that, I will never be able to pay him back. 
I take him in now. He's taller than he was before. Much taller. His chubby child’s build has been replaced with an imposing stature that takes up almost the entire doorway. I guess a lifetime of hefting bakery pans and kneading dough has left him broad-shouldered and muscular. 
“Katniss,” he says. I can tell he’s surprised to see me. His voice is deep and I note that his blonde hair curls with sweat. There’s a streak of flour on his cheek and an apron tied around his waist.
“It’s Ms. Everdeen,” I correct him. It’s out before I can stop myself and as soon as I say it I want to bite my own tongue off. How pretentious I must sound. It's only after Prim has begun ordering a sugar-dusted fruit tart from the case that I realize with a start that the baker's boy knows my name. 
His face is flushed and pink when he turns his eyes to me. 
“I'll take four of those cookies,” I get out. “The orange lilies.” My voice sounds weaker than normal. I hate this. I feel fragile under this boy’s gaze. And that's when I realize: he must be waiting for his thank you. For the bread that he burned and took a beating for. But I can't do it, either because Prim is with me and it would confuse her and probably embarrass the boy, or because it's been five years and the time for ‘thank you’ is over. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he doesn't remember. He probably only knows my name because it was a source of gossip around town when Haymitch adopted Prim and I. He must remember me from then. 
He gives me a timid smile, deftly wraps the cookies in parchment paper, ties them securely with a piece of fringed twine, and hands the package to me. I suddenly feel the need to fill the silence so I blurt: “They’re beautiful. The cookies.” 
He manages to turn a shade pinker. “Thank you, I do most of the frosting around here. I made those this morning.” As I hand him the money for the treats, I assume that's it. That was the end of our conversation. But my tongue is moving again. 
“They look just like the lilies in the woods. I see them on my morning walks.” 
“Yes, exactly,” He grins and reveals a charming set of dimples. “I’ve seen them when I go to the woods to paint.” 
I don't know what else to say and Prim has started tugging on my hand. She’s probably anxious to get home so we can enjoy our treats with tea, so I give him one last look and utter one last thank you before heading back out into the crowded square. 
“Do you know him?” Prim asks as we begin walking towards home. 
“No,” I say, a little relieved to be leaving. I can't catch my breath and my heart is racing like it does when something frightens me. “I don't even know his name.”
“Well, I've never seen you be that talkative with a stranger.” She beams. “Wait until I tell Mrs. Winthrop!” 
Is that what he is to me? A stranger? I shake the thought from my head.
He knew my name. The very least I can do is learn his. 
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brown-bi-beautiful · 5 years ago
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Supernatural Series Rewrite
Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist
Dean Winchester x Named Reader (eventually)
Series Warning: language violence, angst, fluff, sexual content, Gore, molestation, mention of sexual harassment, usual supernatural violence. (If you’re triggered by any of these then please don’t read)
(A/n- I had to give the reader a name, there’s reason behind it but you can change it if you want. I changed some of the plot and some of the scenes but mostly it’s the same. I do not own the supernatural series but there are some things that are completely my imagination, it has nothing to do with the actual mythology or the series)
Bloody Mary part 1
Season One. Episode Five.
Bloody Mary (Part 2)
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Charlie was sobbing when you found her in the park. You guys quickly went up to her and you sat beside her on the park bench. "Hey, what happened?" You asked, rubbing her shoulder softly, knowing she was scared of you. She told you about Jill between sobs.
"And they found her on the bathroom floor. And her-her eyes were gone." She completed her story and looked at you with pleading eyes. "I'm sorry." You whispered, loud enough. "And she said it. I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane right?" She said and you realised this might be the only time when telling a woman she's crazy could be a good thing.
"No, you're not insane." replied Dean.
"Oh god, that makes me feel so much words."
"Look...We think something's happening here. Something that can't be explain." Sam said like it was suppose to make her feel better. "And we're gonna stop it. But we could use your help." Dean said and you knew where this was going.
Charlie took the three of you to Jill's house. "There. That's her room." She said pointing at the window on the first floor. Then she went to the front of her house so she could let you in her room.
"Do all the teenagers have to live on the first floor." You groaned but then realised you were just one of them. Sam was the first one to climb up, and then he helped you and then Dean. Charlie soon opened the window letting the three of you in.
"What did you tell Jill's mom?" You asked.
"Just that I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and stuff. I hate lying to her." She replied.
"Trust us, this is for greater good. Hit the lights." Dean said and she turned off the lights and something caught your eyes on the wall behind Jill's bed. "Is that Nick Carter?" You stared at the life size poster of the member of back street boys. "Sorry." You apologized when you saw three pairs of eyes glaring at you. You never let your inner fangirl out. NEVER. But you always wanted a life size poster of backstreet boys or at least one of them.
"What are you looking for?" She asked after shaking her head and trying to ignore the comment you just made. "We'll let you know as soon as we find it." Dean replied as Sam took out the video camera. "Hey, night vision." Sam said and turned the camera to you and you pressed a button to turn on the night vision. "Thanks. Perfect." He commented and turned it to his older brother. "Do I look like Paris Hilton?" He asked, posing for the camera.
"No, but you do look like Butthead." You said making Sam and Charlie chuckle and Dean glare at you. Sam opened Jill's closet and started filming on the mirror and around it.
"So I don't get it. I mean first victim didn't summon Mary and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?" You asked crossing your arms across your chest and letting the Winchester do all the work. "Beats me." Said Sam. "I wanna know why Jill said it in the first place." Dean said stopping in the middle of the room with the EMF in his hand. "It was just a joke." Charlie answered, a little shamefully.
"Yeah well, somebody's gonna say it again. It's just a matter if time." You pointed out the obvious.
"Hey." Sam said and turned to face him, he was looking at something under the mirror through the video camera. "There's a blacklight in the trunk right?" Sam asked.
"I'll get it." You grabbed Dean's keys and jumped out of the window.
When you got back inside Sam had already pulled out the mirror and laid it on the bed. He peeled off the brown paper and you tossed him the black light. He shined it on the back of the mirror revealing a handprint with a name.
"Gary Bryman?" Charlie read it out loud. "You know who that is?" Sam asked her and she said "No."
You and Sam went to the library to do some research on Gary Bryman, Dean and Charlie waited for you in the park, according to him if he steps into one more library, his head would explode. A big wide grin came across your face when you finally found what you were looking for. "I told you I am good at this." You said turning toward Sam and flipping your hair dramatically. "Yes you are." Sam agreed with a slight chuckle. "Now tell me I'm a genius."
"You're a genius."
When you got back to the park Dean and Charlie were sitting on a bench and Sam and you started explaining what you guys found. "So, with the help of my incredible skills we found out that Gary Bryman was a 8 years old boy killed in a hit and run 2 years ago." You explained and Sam continued the rest. "The car was described as a black Toyota Camry, but no one ever got the plates or saw the driver."
"Oh my god." Charlie gasped and you asked her what happened.
"Jill drove that car." She answered looking up at me and then at Dean. The 3 of you looked at each other with knowing looks on your faces. "We need to get back to your friend Donna's house.”
The 3 of you went to the shoemaker house with Charlie. You had no idea how she managed to get you guys in. You rush to the bathroom and Sam pulled off the mirror in front of which Steven shoemaker died. Sam shone the blacklight on the mirror and read the name out loud. "Linda shoemaker."
"Why are you asking me all this?" Donna asked when you questioned her about the named woman and about her death. "Look, we're sorry, but it's important." Sam, being the ever so polite one, said. "Yeah. Linda's my mom, ok? And she overdosed on sleeping pills. It was an accident, and that's it... I think you should leave." She said when you didn't look convinced. She knew you guys were kinda accusing her dad for her mom's death.
"Donna just listen-"
"Get out of my house." She yelled before you could finish your sentence and walked away. "Rude." You mumbled and rolled your eyes.
"Oh my god. Do you really think her dad could've killed her mom?" She asked with a gasp. "Maybe." Sam said and you rolled your eyes. "Fuck maybe. He definitely did." You said without thinking twice. "Sorry." You apologised looking at the 3 pairs of eyes glaring at you again. "I think I should stick around." Charlie and you nodded.
"Alright, well, just whatever you do, don't-"
"Believe me, I won't say it."
The 3 of you decided to do some more research after. You and Dean were sitting in front of the computer searching about any Mary who died in front of a mirror anywhere in this country. "Wait, wait, wait, you're searching nation-wide search?" Sam asked.
"Yep, the NCIC, the FBI database. At this point any Mary in this country who died in front of a mirror is good enough." You said, successfully hacking into another database.
"But if she's haunting the town, she should have died in the town."
"I'm telling you there's nothing local. we've checked. So unless you've got a better idea." Dean said staring at the screen as you scrolled through case files. "The way she's choosing her victims, it seems like there's a pattern." Sam said. "I know I was thinking the same thing." Dean said and you continued looking through the database. "With Mr. Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run--"
"Both had secrets where people died." You completed his sentence. "Right. There's a lot of folklores about mirrors that they reveal all your lies, your secret. That they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break 'em."
"Yeah, yeah, so maybe if you've got a secret like a really nasty one where someone died then Mary sees it and punishes you for it." Hearing Dean say it, it all came crashing down to you. You couldn't make eye contact with either of the boys, so you stare at the computer screen harder, you didn't even hear who said what next. The mouse was not in your hand any more. "Alex, ALEX." A voice broke you out from your almost panic attack. "What?" You asked looking between the boys.
"Are you ok? What happened? You're sweating like crazy." Sam said and your hand subconsciously went to your face. "Oh, nothing. I just, I'm gonna go get some fresh air." You didn't wait for an answer, just grabbed your jacket and walked out of the motel room. The boys gave each other confused looked.
You walked out to the parking lot, looking up at the starry sky. Maybe this case was it for you. Maybe it was Universe showing you signs that it was your time to get punished for the past, but you did what you did to protect yourself, there's nothing wrong with protecting yourself. And the person who really deserved a punishment, got it.
"Do I deserve to die like this?" You ask looking at the sky, particularly to no one.
"And who are you exactly talking to?" A voice came and you turn around to see a blue eyed boy with blond hair, he looked about your age.
"To my friend, his name is 'none of your damn business.' " you replied wittily and turning back to look at the sky. You felt him walking up beside you. "Brick." He said introducing himself. "Don't care." You said in a monotone.
"Liam was right." He said to himself and you looked at him with and you looked at him with an raised eyebrow. "My friend Liam, he says, the prettier the girl the crazier she is." His words made you laugh this time.
"That's bullshit."
"No seriously. You're lucky you're pretty otherwise you look really crazy standing here talking to the sky."
"You have no idea just how crazy I am."
"I do. Just told you. 'the prettier the girl the crazier she is.' and I don't know why but crazy is kinda my type." For a second he made you blush and you looked away. "But seriously what are you doing here?" He asked looking around at the empty parting lot.
"Just taking some fresh air. Trust me these rooms can be pretty suffocating sometimes. What are you doing here?" You asked with an raised eyebrow.
"OH, I work here. I was just taking out the trash."
"You work here?" You raised an eyebrow looking down his outfit. A pair of jeans and a blue button up which wasn't even buttoned up and a white T-shirt inside.
"My dad kinda owns this place so I get to skip the uniform sometimes." You nodded and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear that fell on your face. "weird how you know about my job and I don't even know your name."
"It's.."
"Alex, think we found one.......In Indiana." Dean trailed off looking at the blond boy beside you as he walked up to the two of you. Dean was clearly glaring at the guy and he was glaring back at Dean.
"Dean, this is Brick, he works here and Brick this is Dean. My--"
"Boyfriend. I'm her boyfriend." Dean said cutting you off and the glare on Bricks face turned into hurt. Before you could open your mouth and defend yourself he said. "Oh, I'm sorry, Man. I didn't know she was taken. I'll get going then." He smiled at you and walked away.
"What was that?" You asked glaring at the Winchester standing in front of you. He didn't answer your question instead turned around and started walking. "No. Don't you dare ignore me Winchester. Why'd you tell him you're my boyfriend."
He suddenly stopped walking and turned around making you bump in his chest. "Because..... Because I wanted to."
"Oh because... Because you wanted to? You know what then? I'll go in there and strip in front of him because I want to."
"No, you won't." He said with a frown.
"Oh try me." You said turning around threatening to go back. In a quick movement he grabbed your hand pulled you back to him. "You will do no such thing, you get it. We are leaving for Indiana..... Now." with that he dragged you inside the motel.
The two hours ride to fourt Wayne was pretty awkward for you and Dean, although Sam had no idea why you guys were suddenly not talking to each other. Again. Sam made some phone calls which you didn't really pay attention to. All you knew was that you guys were meeting a detective at the station about Mary Worthington and apparently you were reporters.
Part 3
*******
A/N:- THIS ONE IS A LITTLE SHORT. I'M REALLY SORRY, GUYS. BUT IT MEANS THE LAST PART WILL BE UPDATED SOON. AND ALSO I NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK ABOUT IT SO FAR, I NEED TO KNOW YOUR OPINION TO KNOW IF I SHOULD KEEP WRITING OR NOT. AND ALSO, JUST BECAUSE I USED CAPS DOESN'T MEAN I'M YELLING AT YOU, I'M JUST TRYING TO GET YOUR ATTENTION. BUH-BYE.......LOVE YOUUUUUU......
Taglist:-
@rach5ive @paintballkid711 @chubby-dumplin @hobby27 @colie87 @iilooveereadiingfiics @spnchick1996 @greenarrowhead @for-a-brothers-love @deanw-is-pretty @puppies-make-me-extra-happy @eternaleviee
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thegreen1969pontiac · 5 years ago
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L’appel Du Vide Chapter 4- Midnight Coffee
                                          Eventual Dean x OC
Summary: When Hope’s sister is killed in a less than a normal house fire, and Sam, her sister’s boyfriend, disappears with his brother after her death they’re her number one suspects. When the cops declare the case cold she begins her hunt for the Winchester boys. She follows them in hope for some evidence pointing to the death of her sister, but will she find more than just the cause and the killer? Will she find out more than she wanted to?
Warning: creepy guy, very minor sexual themes, language, crappy writing
Word Count: 2434
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I've got to admit, the Winchester boys seem to be the hardest to track men in the USA, well, besides my uncle. They seem like ghosts. Sam showed up to Stanford about four years ago, he came on an almost full-ride scholarship and no family to help him move in on moving day.  He was a smart guy, he was top of his class in almost all the schools he was forced to move around to. His dad, John, was a marine. They originated from Lawrence, Kansas, Dean was born January 24, 1979, which seemed to just rip me apart even more seeing as Jess was born the same day in 1984. But John Winchester seemed to disappear the date his wife, Mary died, November 2, 1983, just a year after my sister was born, and to the date the day she died.  Two November 2nd both involving the Winchester boys. What was this some family cult that killed the women of the family? What the hell? After asking the professors at the university, it seems that Sam was pretty normal. Quiet, courteous, polite and intelligent, but nothing out of the ordinary.
After all of this, there was only the date of the deaths that pointed to murder. I needed to find someone that my sister knew, someone who would know what kind of man Sam was. My sister mentioned this guy, he brought them together. This guy named Brady, Jess mentioned him once or twice he wasn't a close friend of hers just someone she met at a college party at one point. If you can imagine there was a shit ton of Brady's at Stanford University, after about 12 hours of driving Theo from frat house to apartment, it wasn't until maybe the 23rd Brady that I finally found the one that knew her. Brady was a successful kid it seemed that he had a job all lined up for him at Niveus Pharmaceuticals, a company that seemed to profit off the sickness of others. But I guess in his mind it would get the bills of Stanford University paid, he was a charismatic young man I could see why Jess let him set her up with Sam. He asked me to come in,
"Are you Brady? Did you know my sister Jessica Moore?" I ask already feeling tried from asking the same question over and over again.
"I'm Brady, yeah. I knew her, I heard what happened. Who are you?" He asked in almost an accusatory manner.
"I'm her sister, I go by Moore. May I sit?" I say already losing patience with the rich and snotty Stanford kid.
"Oh, yeah, yeah of course. Sorry for your loss."  He rushes out.
"I'd just like to ask some questions if you wouldn't mind, just for some closure." I come up with my excuse, it's not for closure though it is for knowledge.
"Yeah, yeah, what do you want to know?" He asks he gestures for me to sit down on the Italian leather coach that he probably paid way too much for.
"My sister, she had a boyfriend, What was his name again? Was it Smitty?" I ask playing stupid, I need to confirm his name, get some information on this sick son of a bitch.
"No, his name was Sam, Sam Winchester. I actually introduced the two." He smiled to himself almost proud that he introduced the two to each other.
"Yeah, good for you. Did you know Sam well? I didn't see him at the funeral, I just wanted to check up on him you know, help me understand how he is dealing with all of this," I stated, "I mean do you know where he is, I couldn't find a single record of where he could've gone after the fire." I smile, playing the victim wasn't ever my role.
"I don't know where he is now but I heard that he went on a road trip with his brother right before the house went down," He says, "I think I might someone who does though, her name is Becky Warren, she and her brother were friends with Sam when he was here. I really hope you find him though, but hey, I gotta get to lacrosse practice so..." He leads off, how did I know this douche would play lacrosse.
"No, I totally get it. Thank you for your time." I say and stand up, I walk out of the house and head to the address. I finally get to the house that is owned by the Warren family. There are only two cars parked in the driveway. I walk up the driveway and am at the door when the door swings open an I'm met with a frazzled looking girl.
"Are you Becky?" I ask blocking her exit from the house.
"Yeah, look, I have to get going I have class in like 10 minutes." She tries to move around me but I move in front of her again,
"Look, I need to know where Sam Winchester is and I was told you could help me if you could just give me a general idea I will be out of your hair," I say,
"I don't give out my friend's locations to strangers so why don't you piss off." She said and made a move to go around me but this time a grab her jacket and push her against the door frame.
"Yeah, well I don't usually arrange funerals for dead family members but it seems like we are all having a bad year," I growl at her,
"So I am going to ask you one more god damn time, you are going to tell me where my dead sister's boyfriend is or I swear to God I will make you and your brother's life the most miserable they can be, so you can know how I have felt every god damn day since I heard my baby sister was killed in that fire." I hiss out at her.
"I don't know okay, he only texts me so often." She whimpers, "The last I heard he was in Ohio." I smile and let her off the doorstep.
"See, that's all I needed we didn't need to get all nasty. Now lets hope we don't see each other again shall we?" Yeah, we can only hope, right? I turn on my heel and walk to Theo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A suburban Ohio town has been dealing with the murder of one of their own Steven Shoemaker died in a strange way, the obituary said it was a stroke. But his eyes basically burst out of his skull. Death although seems to follow these boys so why not take a look. Toledo, Ohio was quite the apple pie life town, it was full of high school sweethearts and minivans, but under all of that sticky sweetness, I could tell that there were some underlying skeletons in the closet of the gingerbread house town. Driving there wasn't much of an issue after running on only alcohol and granola bars for about three weeks, it is nice to have a change to coffee and diner food. The food that was eaten along the way to Ohio made me feel like crap but the coffee was always warm and the diners mainly stayed open for 24 hours. That's where I am now, sitting at a 24-hour diner with checkered tiles and bright red seats. The coffee on the table no matter how much I want to say it was black and sound like the badass, it had two creamers and three sugars in it. I was researching the town on my lab top, when the sun peeks its way from behind the family houses I'm heading down to the coroners to get a closer look at the body of the victim. Its been around two days since I had a decent shower so I decided to pack up early and make myself not look like the sleep deprived, alcohol smelling, mess that I am.
The hotel life had been abandoned, motels were now my realm. I can't tell if it is because I don't trust myself to be in high places anymore or if I just don't believe in the normal life anymore and I'm punishing myself to shitty, never cleaned motels that look like they could also be pimping out prostitutes to each room. After the shower, I dress in some of my best clothes that I packed, a black pencil skirt and a white button up that I tucked into the skirt letting my collar bones show, I put my hair up in a professional up-do and grabbed the brown leather jacket that kept me warm in the cold weather. The only new things I needed were shoes and I ended up going to one of the many stores at Toledo's main street and just as the store was opening managed to grab a pair of classy black heels. The coroner's office would no doubt be open now and I just needed to complete the facade with a small pen and notebook. Instead of putting in my contacts this morning I left my glasses on, the blood shotness of my eyes were slightly hidden by the glass.
As I parked Theo in the parking lot of the office I see a black 67' impala sitting across the street. The license plates reading Kansas. I hold my breath, there is no possible way that I would find the boys in the first place I stopped. As I put on the heels from inside my car I saw two tall men walking out of the hospital, the stairs looked old and white, One of the men was no doubt, Sam Winchester, I quickly walked up to the boys ready to walk right up to the evil son of a bitch that murdered my sister and start beating the living hell out of the tall man. But the man next to the puppy dog man was intimidating, he was tall and wore a dark brown leather jacket over his blue flannel, he stared me down like a piece of meat and I knew that I could barely take down one of the two Winchester's and if this was Dean there would be no way in hell I would be able to take down either of them. As I walked closer to them and as they passed me I tried to identify every possible feature so I would be able to know who they were the next time I saw them. As I went up the stairs and they walked down I paid careful attention to which car they got into, and not at all to my surprise I see they get in the Impala with the Kansas license plates, I make careful note of those as well. KAZ-2Y5. God, that won't be hard to forget.
As I get inside the hospital building I walk quickly down to the coroner's office and although I hate wearing heels I like the way they make the clicking noise on the tile floor. The office does look like its open but I can't imagine that the sleazeball looking nurse that sits at the desk seemingly counting cash is the doctor I'm looking for. I tap on the door,
"I'm sorry are you Dr. Feiklowicz? I'm doing an article for the paper about death and I was wondering if I could get some details." I say smiling, I see him rush to put some bills in his pocket, I put it together in my mind and guess that it was the boys that gave the money to him. Why the hell would they pay to see their own murder victim, what kind of sickos are these freaks?
"I'm sorry, he won't be back for an hour, is there something I could help you with?" He says smirking. I can feel him looking me up and down and I can feel my inner head just retching at even the thought. "Oh, that's too bad, is there any way that I could see the body on my own maybe, I just am going to be taking notes." I hum out,
"I'm sorry I will have to ask for some identification before I can let you in, you said you were with the press?" I curse myself, I smile and nod,
"Of course, let me just get out my-- Oh, shoot I think I left my key card at the office, can I just give you my ID?" I ask falsely reaching for the key card that I did not own.
"Well-- I really do nee--" I smile and begin to take off my jacket leaving me in my skirt and blouse that although classy, seems to work on the idiot in front of me, I hold it in my hand arms crossed and stare innocently at him.
"Please, I really need to get some notes, I have to get these back before my boss gets back, he is so mean to me and I might lose my job," I say making myself tear up, I guess playing Ophelia in middle school paid off well.
"Well, I guess. Can I see your ID?" I hand it to him, he takes it and I see him try and make an effort to brush my hand with his own the action almost makes me sick to my stomach.
"Hope Moore, that's a real’ pretty name. A pretty name for a pretty girl," He says trying to woo me with his horrible pick up line.
"Actually I go by Moore." I let my sickly sweet facade drop that time letting him know that I do not want him to call me that again.
"Yeah, sure."
He leads me back into the room and he pulls the sheet off, after seeing my sister I don't think I will be so upset with dead bodies anymore. I ask him about the death and it's said that something bizarre happened that his eyes burst inside his skull, the creep nurse said that there has never been something like that to happen during a stoke. I thank him for his time and he seems to be wanting to ask me something but I rush out of the morgue and get back to finding the Winchester boys.
 I drive around town hoping to see the same black car and when I finally find it I notice that there are many other cars parked outside the house as well.
I grimace, funerals suck.
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bluboothalassophile · 6 years ago
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could you pretty pleeeeease continue the Jay/Rae Pocahontas AU? It would make my day! (PS i love you blue, you’re one of my favorite writers
Hello,
I know this has been in my inbox for a while, and to all who have made requests, I’m getting to them rather slowly, though I will admit I’m about to disappear for a bit. Again. When I return I’ll probably have a mass update for all of you. While I’m away don’t be afraid to leave requests if you want to, but please, don’t ask when I’ll return. I’ll come back, just maybe not for a bit. Thank you.
Wayward Birds…
She skidded down the slope where there was a massive deadcat, shoving the heavy body off of Jason and she didn’t faulter. She hadwitnessed a mauling before, none of the blood was bright red, nothing waspulsing. Looking him over, she moved to help him, the wounds were deep andperilous but she had to work fast.
The cat groaned, and she twisted to see the animal gettingup, limping, it’s teeth bared, and she pulled her knife. The cat glared at her,and she stared balefully back. But she watched the cat limp off. Turning backto Jason she moved his hair off his brow, leaned over, listened, felt hisbreath on her ear and she continued inspecting him over. The wounds were deep,and she got to work.
~~~*~*~*~~~
Kyle for the life of him, could not figure out what the hellhad happened to Jason. He hadn’t shown up at the local ranches or in thesmaller towns; no tracker they’d crossed had even seen him, which wasconcerning in and of itself. Kyle was not fool enough to think that Jason wasdead, but there was something up.
“We should avoid this area,” Jessica murmured to him, whichhad him turning to her with an arched brow. The Mexican merely looked aroundworriedly.
“What is wrong with this area?” Simon growled.
“I don’t see anything troubling.” Guy filled in unhelpfully.
“Jess, what is it?” Kyle sighed as she looked aroundnervously.
“That’s Apache territory, it’d be smarter to go around it orfind another way,” she whispered worriedly.
“You don’t actually believe all that nonsense!?” Simon seared,but Kyle sighed as Simon and Guy started telling the outrageous stories they’dheard of the Apache. But Jessica was right, they should go around, or findanother way. Jason wasn’t foolish enough to actually travel through Apachecountry, at least Kyle didn’t think he was.
Then again, this was Jason and Jason would travel throughApache territory.
“We go through, Jason would go through,” he sighed.
Jessica looked stricken at the mere thought and he didn’t blameher. The Apache were terrifying warriors, and he didn’t particularly want to betangled up in this mess. Still, it was Jason.
“Is he crazy!?”
Kyle didn’t answer that as he sometimes wondered about thesanity of Jason himself. Jason was just a fearless mother fucker, and aconfident asshole.
~~~*~*~*~~~
She cleaned the wounds in the shelter she had found. Aftershe had managed to get him on his horse, the beast was docile for her as shestruggled with Jason’s weight to get him up on the damn beast. The man washuge, far larger than the men of her Tribe, and he was heavy, heavier than anykill she’d made. Jason was an easy patient, though she supposed that it wasbecause he was unconscious that he was easy.
She worked over his wounds.
Her eyes flicked to the man and she looked at the wounds,and she continued working them over.
He was kind to her, she appreciated that as not many were kindto her.
~~~*~*~*~~~
Bruce sat in Gotham and stared out at the sea.
Of all his children he had the hardest time understandinghis second son. Of course his wife had teased him that this was because Jason wasjust like him. Of course the moment the ‘M’ word (marriage) was dropped around Jasonhis second son had bolted. He was too much like his mother not to, after all,Bruce’s first wife hadn’t ever been fond of commitment, though that was what hehad loved about her when she’d been alive. Selina was all spitfire and wilddesires, and her three sons had followed in suit. Richard, Jason and Timothywere the most like their mother in his mind. Though his second wife swore hischildren were more like him than Selina.
Bruce didn’t see it, at all. His sons were so much more thanhe could ever be. But neither Dick nor Timothy had had the problems that Jason hadhad with the mere mention of marriage.
His eldest son, Dick was married to the Commissioner’sdaughter, Barbara Gordon. It was a good match, though with Dick’s flamboyantattitude and Barbara’s need for perfection they clashed almost violently attimes but they were a good match all the same. They were expecting their firstchild after Barbara’s previous miscarriages.
Tim had married below his prospects, marrying a Scottish immigrant,Stephanie Brown, who was also a shoemaker’s daughter. Bruce had opposed thematch until he actually met his third son’s wife. Stephanie brought out thebest of Tim, encouraging him to be more out going, it was rather remarkable. Theyhad a child already and another on the way.
Bruce saw most of himself in his youngest son, the childfrom his second wife. Not that Bruce had ever intended to marry the ArabianPrincess, but Talia had evoked emotions in him he thought had died with Selinaand Helena.
Damian was coming of age as well, and would soon be of marryingage.
But first, Bruce was aiming to marry Jason.
And Jason’s prospects actually far exceeded what he expectedwhen a princess of Greece had actually become besotted with his second son.
Princess Donna had fallen for Jason hard, and Bruce hadnudged his son in that direction subtly. The match was a good match, far betterthan Bruce had expected, until Donna had asked Jason if he was ever going tomarry her. Then Jason had bolted faster than anyone could detain him.
Venturing west.
It was maddening, and in the last year he hadn’t heardanything about his second son. Bruce was starting to get concerned and wonderedif he should embark west to go find his wayward child.
“What is on your mind, father?” Damian’s cultured, arrogantvoice was behind him and Bruce turned to look at his youngest.
“I’m going west to find your brother,” Bruce decided thenand walked out of the library to start making the arrangements.
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uncuentofriki · 7 years ago
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Remember me
Because this one-shot couldn’t have another title.
"What do you think, Mama Coco?" said Miguel, while everyone were doing the souvenirs for his sister's baptism. She barely was one month old. "Now were planning her baptism and then her Quince Años!"
Coco saw the cute little angels of cold porcelain that every woman on the family made and how the men were tying up to cards that had written on them the date of the celebration. Every angel had a pink diaper."Mariana" you could read on the cards. The baptism was going to be the next sunday
."I see, mijito, I'm going to be her golden chamberlain" the woman laughed.
The cards were crossed out and corrected with correction fluid, both on name and date. The dawn of the planned day of the baptism was the last of Coco, that couldn't even see the sun between the mountains as she liked to do. Elena went to take her mother out to see the sunrise when she noticed that life leaved her beloved mother.
After the past Day of the Death, since Miguel's guitar broke the silence that Mama Imelda imposed on the family, the music never leaved the house. But the silence came back and covered the house. The musician of the family didn't touched his guitar during the night of Mama Coco's wake. But he didn't leaved her side, on respectful silence, crying until his eyes burned. 
The Rivera learned that day that the melody of life, as any other melody, has their silences too.
Now, it happens that when a person dies, they wait until they are on their graves. For Hector, since he didn't even had a wake, he just waited some hours. He even had, after all, the bendition of not having to pass to the hands of the medicine students.
The entire town were with the Family, also in respectful silence, to the cemetary, more curious than respectful. The family were going to keep the tradition of their silent funerals with the daughter of the famous Hector Rivera, the biggest musician of Mexico?
It was a beautiful and sunny day. The kind of days that Coco loved, because on those days her hands hurted less from all the shoemaking and of raising boys and girls that she cared with all her love.
The familiar tomb had written on its stone the names of Imelda, her brothers Oscar and Felipe, Julio -whom died 8 years ago, her daughter Victoria and, after a long searching (on which Miguel was suspiciously helpful) Hector, because both Coco and Miguel were reluctant to put him on a ridiculous monument. He deserved to be at the side of the woman that he loved so much on his life and at the side of all the people that their love gave life.A guitar broke the silence. The same guitar with the silver tone as the moon on the april's night that was property of Coco's father and now it was property of his descendant.It was the right song for the farewell to a long life full of blessings and love. The song that resumed all the love that that unnamed had for his daughter, the one that they were burying that day.
Remember me Though I have to say goodbye Remember me Don't let it make you cry
The family were throwing blue hyacints to the tomb, Coco's favorites, joining to the song that they already knew so well. Miguel's voice, always clean as a river, now had stones on it, trying to don't cry of the sadness of losing his best friend and accomplice but also he was happy of knowing that finally his Papa Hector was going to see again his beloved daughter. For even if I'm far away I hold you in my heart I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart
The cards of the baptism were crossed and corrected. Coco.
Once the last shovel of earth fell upon the flowers, Coco woke up on the Inmigration Room of the Land of the Death.
"Socorro Rivera". the employer called her.
"Yes, that's my name. So, I'm dead now, huh?" and she looked around on the room, surprised of seeing herself on the bones
."Wow, you really survived a lot, you were going to die once when you were 3 months old and almost died when your daughter Victoria were born" the employer saw her data. "Your family was notified of your arrival, they are on their way here. Just don't move and wait for them".
And she was true, first she ran to hug her beloved Julio. How much she missed her husband and his mustache that always itched on her cheeks! She kissed him as they did when they both were young or really happy.
"Ay, my sweetie, I missed you a chingo!" he kissed her hands. They both huged Victoria, she leaved them so young that Coco felt like she spended a hundred years without her daughter.
"Mama! I'm happy to see you here" Victoria greeted Coco with her habitual stoicism. Still, she wasn't less affectuous. Coco's uncles appeared and carried her as they did when she was a kid.
"Our beautiful Coquito!" they kissed her cheeks. Coco's sister-in-law, Rosita, huged her too, almost crushing her on a way that, if Coco could feel any pain, she would feel pain. 
Finally and behind they all, she saw something that she never though she was going to see neither on her life or on her death. She blinked, incredulous and asking herself if Elena had buried her with her glases, because she needed them to confirm what she was seeing. Imelda was walking at Hector's side, as they used to walk when she ran behind the doves, so, so many years ago, looking at each other the same way they used to. Hector was exactly as he was the last time she saw him, just on the bones as they all were.
Oh no.
So that was the reason why he never came back.
Coco knew deep down her that it was the truth. Hector loved them both so much that only death could tear her family appart.
She wasn't able to run to her parents, thinking that that would break the ilusion. If she could cry, she will be crying.
"My Coco!" Hector yelled and started to run on the direction of his beloved girl, his sunshine, his little princess. He spinned with her, laughing full of joy. Coco was laughing too. How much she missed that! Finally and after almost a century of waiting, she was back on his arms, those that she missed so much when she singed Remember me to herself, hidding from Imelda or when Miguel sang for her, bringing light to the shadows of her memory after so many years.
Imelda huged her.
"We missed so much" Imelda touched the face of her beloved daughter. "But I'm so glad that you took your time"
"And how you knew what happened to Papa, Mama?" the daughter asked.
"Miguel. He came here and told us what happened. We are in debt with the chamaco" Hector smiled. Imelda felt a shiver with the memory of how close she were to lose her husband for second time and now because of her. "I wish him to take a long time to come back here because I want Miguel to be bigger than me. Although I miss the gordito. Lets go, because we made you a welcome party, that's why it took your mother and I so much time to come here." 
Notes 1- We have the tradition of spending an entire night (sometimes two) with our dead people before burying them. Also we bring mariachis to the funerals.  2- The Golden Chamberlain: On Quinceañeras (if you haven’t been on one) the girl has a certain number of chamberlains that dance with her and are somewhat a court for her. But there’s one who’s the most important, usually it is her brother, a cousin or the boyfriend of the girl. That boy gets called “the golden charmerlain”.
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jaybeevega · 4 years ago
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Blogpost 3-5
“The Life of Pi”
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“The life of Pi” this movie is a kind of dramatic movie, tells the fantastical story of Pi Patel, a sixteen-year-old South Indian boy who survives at sea with a tiger for 227 days and there is a lot of lessons that you will learn and it can help you in your whole life. In this story Pi is the only human survived in that disaster and his mom, his dad and his brother died in a middle of disaster and Pi also succeed on surviving 227 days in the middle of the ocean, A lot of problems, challenges, and battles that he experience in order to survive, to the point that there is a time that he wants to give up, there are times that he want to die, but he keep on fighting until he succeed. After all of those problems, challenges and battles Pi survived with a tiger named Richard Parker, Pi and Richard Parker eventually land on the Mexican beach. Richard Parker immediately runs off into the jungle without acknowledging Pi, which Pi finds deeply hurtful. Pi is found, fed, bathed, and taken to a hospital. There, two Japanese men come to question Pi about what caused the Tsimtsum to sink. He tells his story, which they do not believe, so he offers them a more plausible version, with the animal characters replaced by other humans, which casts doubt on the original story. According to Pi “You know, I left so much behind, my family, the zoo, India, Anandi. I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. I was never able to thank my father for all I learned from him. To tell him, without his lessons I would never have survived. I know Richard Parker’s a tiger but I wish I had said, “It’s over. We survived. Thank you for saving my life. I love you, Richard Parker. You’ll always be with me. May God be with you.” The lesson is Learn to let go, to forgive, be humble and stand up for yourself.
1. What life lessons can be learned from the movie?
- the lessons that you can learn in the movie is that to let go, to forgive, be humble, and stand up for yourself
2. What part of the story told by the movie was the most powerful? Why?
- the most powerful part of the movie is that when the typhoon has appeared and their boat is about to destroy and only Pi and other animals survived on that typhoon
3. Who was your favorite character in the movie? Why?
- It is Pi because aside from being a protagonist he is a strong man and even how big is the problems or challenges that has given to him, he never give up, and I am inspired to his story that we can win against our problems and challenges that has given to us.
4. Did anything that happened in the  movie remind you of something that has occurred in your own life or that you have seen occur to others?
- the thing that reminds me in this movie is that, when they finally survived Richard Parker runs to the jungle and Pi was hurt because Parker did not even thank Pi for saving him.
“Coco”
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The movie entitled “coco” In Santa Cecilia, Mexico, Miguel dreams of becoming a musician, even though his family strictly forbids it. His great-great-grandmother Imelda was married to a man who left her and their daughter Coco to pursue a career in music, and when he never returned, Imelda discarded all forms of music from her family's life before starting a shoemaking business. Miguel now lives with the elderly Coco and their family, including Miguel's parents and grandmother, who are all shoemakers. Coco suffers from memory loss and has become largely non-verbal, but Miguel is very close to her. Miguel secretly idolizes famed musician Ernesto de la Cruz and practices his guitar skills using Ernesto's old films. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel accidentally damages the picture frame that holds a photo of Coco with her mother and her father (the latter's face torn off the picture) on the family ofrenda, discovering that a hidden section of the photograph shows his great-great-grandfather holding Ernesto's famous guitar. Miguel, concluding that Ernesto is his great-great-grandfather, ignores his family's objections and decides to enter the local talent show. Breaking into Ernesto's mausoleum, Miguel takes his guitar to use in the show, but once he strums it, he becomes invisible to everyone in the village plaza. However, he can interact with his skeletal deceased relatives, who are visiting from the Land of the Dead for the holiday. Taking him back with them, they learn that Imelda cannot visit, since Miguel accidentally removed her photo from the ofrenda. Miguel discovers that he is cursed for stealing from the dead, and must return to the Land of the Living before sunrise, or he will become one of the dead; to do so, he must receive a blessing from a member of his family. Imelda offers Miguel a blessing on the condition of ending his dream of becoming a musician, but Miguel refuses and resolves to seek Ernesto's blessing instead. He meets Héctor, who declares that he knows Ernesto, offering to help Miguel reach him in return for Miguel taking his photo back with him, so that he might visit his daughter before she forgets him, causing him to disappear completely. Héctor helps Miguel enter a talent competition to win entry to Ernesto's mansion, but Miguel's family tracks him down, forcing him to flee. Miguel sneaks into the mansion, where Ernesto welcomes him as his descendant, but Héctor confronts them, again imploring Miguel to take his photo to the Land of the Living. Ernesto and Héctor renew an argument from their partnership in life, and Miguel realizes that when Héctor decided to leave to return home to his family, Ernesto robbed him of his guitar and songs after poisoning him, passing them off as his own to become famous. To protect his legacy, Ernesto seizes the photo and has his security guards throw Miguel and Héctor into a cenote pit. There, Miguel discovers that Héctor is his actual great-great-grandfather, and Coco's father. Héctor only wanted to go to the Land of the Living so he could see Coco again. After Imelda and the family rescue the duo, Miguel reveals the truth about Héctor's death. Imelda and Héctor slowly reconcile, and the family infiltrates Ernesto's concert to retrieve Héctor's photo. Ernesto's crimes are exposed to the audience, who jeer at him as he is flung out of the stadium by Imelda's alebrije, Pepita. Ernesto is then trapped under a giant bell, recreating the circumstances of his death; in the chaos, however, Miguel loses Héctor's photo. As the sun rises, Coco's memories are fading; Imelda and Héctor bless Miguel, so that he can return home. After Miguel plays "Remember Me", a song that Héctor wrote for Coco, which Ernesto used as his number one hit, Coco brightens and sings along with Miguel. She reveals that she had saved the torn-off piece of the family photo with Héctor's face on it, and then tells her family stories about her father, thus saving his memory as well as his existence in the Land of the Dead. Miguel's family reconciles with him, ending the ban on music. One year later, Miguel shows his new baby sister the family ofrenda, which now includes Héctor and a recently deceased Coco. Coco's collected letters from Héctor reveal Ernesto's plagiarism, tarnishing his legacy and allowing Héctor to be rightfully honored in his place. In the Land of the Dead, Héctor and Imelda rekindle their romance and join Coco for a visit to the living, where Miguel performs for his family.
 1.What life lessons can be learned from the movie?
- The life lesson I have learned after watching the movie was we should remember our family who had been passed away , not only the member of the family but to those person who shows good or nice to us their memories should remain in our heart and treasure everything they have done for us.
2. What part of the story told by the movie was the most powerful? Why?
- When Miguel finally meet his great grandfather who was his idol. In a reason where they had been working together and surpasses many difficulties in their journey not knowing that Miguel already met his idol without knowing.
3. Who was your favorite character in the movie? Why?
- Its Miguel, despite from his family who strictly forbids music in their lives he still pursue his dreams.
4. Did anything that happened in the  movie remind you of something that has occurred in your own life or that you have seen occur to others?
- The time when Coco forget her father, it's because of the hatred they become selfish and think only about their selves.
“Kimi No Nawa(Your Name)”
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The movie “Kimi no nawa(your name)” is a Japanese movie. Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school girl living in the rural town of Itomori near Hida. She is bored living in town and wishes to be a boy in her next life. She inexplicably begins to switch bodies intermittently with Taki Tachibana, a high school boy in Tokyo, when they wake up in the morning. They both initially believe these experiences to be vivid dreams, but eventually realize they can communicate with each other, by recording messages on paper, phones and sometimes on each other's skin. Mitsuha (in Taki's body) sets Taki up on a date with his coworker Miki Okudera, while Taki (in Mitsuha's body) causes Mitsuha to become popular at school. One day, Taki (in Mitsuha's body) accompanies Hitoha and Yotsuha to leave the ritual alcohol kuchikamizake, made by the sisters, as an offering to the Shinto shrine on a mountaintop outside the town. It is believed to represent the body of the village guardian god, ruling over human experiences and connections. Taki reads a note from Mitsuha about the comet Tiamat, expected to pass Earth on the day of the autumn festival. The next day, Taki wakes up in his body and goes on a date with Miki, who tells him she enjoyed the date but also that she can tell that he is preoccupied by thoughts of someone else. Taki attempts to call Mitsuha on the phone, but cannot reach her and the body-switching ends. Taki, Miki, and their friend Tsukasa travel to Gifu Prefecture by train on a trip to Hida, though Taki does not know the name of the town, instead relying on sketches he has made of the surrounding landscape from his memory. A restaurant owner in Hida, who is originally from Itomori, recognizes one of Taki's sketches. Taki and his friends arrive in the town, which is now destroyed by a meteor and five hundred people were killed three years after the comet Tiamat unexpectedly fragmented. While gazing over the impact crater, in disbelief that everyone he met in Mitsuha's body had died this entire time, Taki sees that Mitsuha's messages have been permanently deleted from his phone and their memories start fading away. Taki finds every names in the record of fatalities and wonders if the body-switching was just a dream. While Miki and Tsukasa return to Tokyo, Taki goes to the shrine alone to drink Mitsuha's sake from the bottle, hoping to reconnect with her body and warn her about the comet. After drinking the sake, Taki lapses into a vision, where he sees Mitsuha's past. When she was a child, her mother died of an illness, and her father abandoned the family to pursue politics and become the mayor, leaving Mitsuha and her sister to be raised by their maternal grandmother. He learns that he met Mitsuha on a train three years earlier, when she arrives in Tokyo to find him while the body-switching was occurring in her timeline but not yet due to happen for another three years. Before leaving the train in embarrassment, she leaves Taki with the braid, which he has worn on his wrist as a good-luck charm. Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body at the house on the morning of the festival. Hitoha deduces what happened, and tells him the body-switching ability has been passed down among the family caretakers of the shrine. Taki convinces Tessie and Sayaka, two of Mitsuha's friends, to make everyone evacuate the town, by disabling the electrical substation and broadcasting a false emergency alert. Realizing that Mitsuha is in his body at the shrine, Taki goes back to find her and Mitsuha wakes up in Taki's body. When Taki reaches there during the sunset, the two sense each other's presence, but are separated temporally by three years and cannot see each other. When twilight falls (referred to in the film as "magic hour" or "kataware-doki" they return to their own bodies and meet in person for the first time. After Taki returns the braid to Mitsuha, they attempt to write their names on each hands so they will remember each other, but twilight passes and Mitsuha disappears before she can write hers. When the evacuation plan fails, Mitsuha determines to convince her father, the mayor, to evacuate the town. Before doing so, Mitsuha notices her memories for Taki starting to fade, and discovers he wrote "I love you" on her hand instead of his name. Despite the evacuation, the meteor crashes to Earth and destroys Itomori. Taki wakes up in his own time, remembering nothing. Five years later, Taki has graduated from university and searches for a job. He senses he lost something important he cannot identify, but feels drawn to the town's disaster, in which the inhabitants have survived by following the mayor's evacuation order. One day, Taki and Mitsuha see each other when their trains draw parallel, and they separately disembark and search for each other, finally meeting at the stairs of Suga Shrine. Taki calls out to Mitsuha, saying that he feels that he knows her, and she responds that she has the same feeling. With their connection re-established, they shed tears of happiness and simult.
 1.What life lessons can be learned from the movie?
- The lesson I've learned in the movie was in every situation do not hesitate to offer things that you can do and share what you have for better , just like Taki where he find Mitsuha to prevent the incoming disaster
2. What part of the story told by the movie was the most powerful? Why?
- When Taki and Mitsuha finally had conversation in person wherein they are both excited and nervous. They become very comfortable to each other and Taki reminds Mitsuha that she can still save everyone from the incoming disaster.
3. Who was your favorite character in the movie? Why?
- Taki , because he sacrifices everything and look for the girl he wants and to confirm if she is fine. Despite from the gossips and news he heard he still want to help and save Mitsuha
4. Did anything that happened in the  movie remind you of something that has occurred in your own life or that you have seen occur to others?
-  The sacrifises and effort of Taki, cause in real life we must sacrifise and give effort to the things we are happy to do.
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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years ago
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Cecilia Chiang, in Her Own Words
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At 98, the iconic San Francisco restaurateur is as bold as ever. Now, she shares her life story with her friend, pastry chef Belinda Leong.
Editor’s note: Cecilia Chiang died on October 28, 2020, at the age of 100. This story, originally published in July 2018, sees Chiang discussing her life, career, and influence on Chinese food in America with close friend Belinda Leong, who notes “hers is a career any chef today would envy.” Looking back at her great successes at the time, Chiang said, “When I started, not that young. I was 30. In a foreign land. Didn’t know the background or the history of the USA. And that’s not very easy. This [is] something I’m very thankful for.”
It’s not an understatement to call Cecilia Chiang one of San Francisco’s most beloved culinary figures. Her first restaurant in town, the Mandarin, opened in 1961 — a time when the white Americans she needed to support her business were far more familiar with egg foo young and chop suey than they were with the traditional dishes she served, like beggar’s chicken and smoked tea duck. Like many restaurateurs, it took Cecilia some time to find her groove in San Francisco, but she did — and by 1968, she moved the Mandarin to a bigger space in Ghirardelli Square, where she presided for over 20 years. Then came the Mandarin Beverly Hills. And then came two more restaurants. Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower attended her cooking classes. Her cookbook is a must-have for anyone interested in Chinese cooking.
Hers is a career any chef today would envy.
I sat down with Cecilia earlier this year to talk, to hear her tell me her story (again), and to show the world the wonderful woman I’ve come to know as a close friend and mentor.
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Cecilia and I officially met at a party at restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s house. I was working at Restaurant Gary Danko at the time, and Cecilia had been in, and said hi, but it was at the party that we really connected. We started to get to know each other, and would see each other around town at events. When I wanted to leave the restaurant to open my own bakery, I turned to her for advice. I was hearing mixed things about the location I was considering. When Cecilia opened her first restaurant in San Francisco, she heard mixed things about her location too.
Cecilia: My first restaurant was on Polk Street. At that time, 1960, Polk Street had no offices, no nothing. Everybody said, “This is a really bad [location] ... This is a pensioner’s area.” I didn’t know at that time what “pensioner” meant.
Others said, “You don’t serve Cantonese food. You don’t serve chop suey; the only Chinese food people know is chop suey.” I said, “I just try to do my best.” I wanted to introduce the real Chinese food to America. That’s how I did it.
I explained that to you. I said, “Don’t listen to everybody, otherwise you’ll get very confused.” That’s how we got to know each other better. Sometimes you’d call me to ask a few questions, because after all, you weren’t experienced [running your own business]. Sometimes little things would happen, and it can hurt your feelings. I told you, “Really, not that important. You just do whatever you can.” I said, “You’ll be just fine.”
I see Cecilia a few times a week. Together we talk, cook, and go out to eat. I asked her to walk me through her typical day.
You probably know my age. I’m 98 now, but I’m still what you can call a self-disciplined person. Every morning I get up at about 9 o’clock, and I have my breakfast, and then make some important phone calls, and then I go to the park. I walk, and also I do my exercise. At my age, I cannot do a lot of very extreme things, like jogging. About three years ago, I fell. I had seven stitches on my head. I injured my shoulder and my leg. At home I use a walker. But I still manage to take myself out. I live alone, but every day I have my routine.
I don’t have a computer, so I read a newspaper, like the New York Times, every day. Not too much local news: the Chronicle, only the food section.
I go out a lot with friends. I love to eat out. When you cook Chinese, you cannot cook a little. Once you cook, you have to have somebody share with you. In Chinese food, the prep work is a lot: You have to cut it, wash it, and slice it, then you eat. That’s no fun at all, so I go out to eat. But once in a while, I get some friends, we just eat, cook together, and have a little fun, a little glass of wine or Champagne. We laugh a lot, talk silly things, have a good time.
I think it’s very important, especially when you’re getting older, to have really good friends, because your own kids marry, have children, they move to somewhere. You need good friends to keep you company.
My friends say, “Cecilia, you’re a really very disciplined person.” When I’m home alone, I don’t drink. I don’t touch any wine, anything. I just eat and get work done. If friends call me, I must return the call. If people ask me to do some work, I do it right away. I don’t drag on. I like to get things done. Every day I have a schedule I put on a piece of paper. I look at every day: “Oh, pretty good, I finished everything today,” then I can sleep better.
People ask me, “What’s the secret?” I have lived such a long life. The first thing I must say, I have to thank my ancestors. We have good genes. My father died at 98 during the Cultural Revolution. My mother died at 94. Those days in China, most people don’t know how poor they were. My father got a little bottle of this much cooking oil a week: Everything was on ration. They were so poor. My father wasn’t sick; they just starved to death, there was no food. Most people don’t know all these things. I think I’m very lucky I have good genes.
Another thing is I try to learn Chinese moderation. I really believe that: Never overeat, or never overdrink. Never overdo it.
Also, I work. I love to work. I take care of my flowers. I planted all these by myself. I fertilize them, I prune them back, I like to work with my hands. I think you do too, Belinda. Look at my hands. I like to use my hands and keep busy.
Cecilia Chiang was born in 1920 in Wuxi, a wealthy town near Shanghai, along the coast of the Chang Jiang River (also known as the Yangtze). When she was 4, her family — including her father’s extended family — moved to Beijing, at the time the capital of “old China.” As Chiang remembers it, her family moved to be a part of the new Republic of China. Even so, she still thinks of herself as a “southerner,” especially when it comes to food.
I’m from a family of 12 children by the same parents. I say that because those days, all the rich families had concubines. Legally you could have two, three wives, and they all lived under the same roof. On my husband’s side, his father had five concubines. Five. But we had no concubines, 12 kids, nine girls and three boys.
Fortunately, we all had good educations; we all went to college. But those days that was not very easy, because we didn’t have enough public schools, it was mostly all private school. Not too many families can afford to send all the kids: Usually people would say, “Oh, the girls ... after they grow up, they just get married, raise kids.” But my father said, “No, I want all my girls to go to college, have a good education.”
Another thing that was very important: Those days, in the Qing Dynasty, they bound your feet, and my mother had bound feet. When my number one sister (we call the eldest sister “number one”) was 4 years old, my mother started to bind her feet, but my father said, “No. You cannot do that.”
My mother said, “Oh, if I don’t bind her feet, who’s going to marry her? Nobody will marry her.” Because that’s the status. Only farmers, the peasants, have big feet. If you’re from a high-class, wealthy family, you have to have your feet bound. My father said, “Don’t worry about it. If nobody marries them, I’ll keep them at home.” This is very unusual. So in our family, we all have natural feet.
In the old days, the girls were not supposed to work. Once you go out to work, the family loses faith: “Oh, you must be poor [to] send your girl off.” Most girls always stayed home. With my older sisters, my father hired this opera-singer tutor.
My parents were very artistic people. They loved music. They loved opera, the grand opera, and they loved all the old paintings. My father loved all these old porcelains, and he also made all these little bonsai with a little tweezer. Doing the bonsai was very unusual. Also, my father played violin, Chinese violin, and then my older sisters started to sing the opera. My older brother also played the violin. I must say since I can remember, we really had a happy childhood.
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In summertime, we had a ranch, near Marco Polo Bridge, and you had to take [a] little train to go there. We had a little farm, so we grew all the vegetables, cabbage, carrots, squash, tomato, everything.
In China, we didn’t have ready-to-wear, ready-made things. Everything was custom made; you could not buy anything. We had a tailor and a shoemaker at home, because of all the kids: You had to make clothes and shoes for the 12 of us.
I think about that, about all these wonderful things we had when we were kids. It was very unusual. I mean, those days, everything you had, you just take for granted. But now, I think it’s very privileged: How many families could afford to do that?
After college, I think I probably thought I would maybe find somebody, get married. Like I told you, most of the girls, after their education, just get married, raise the kids, be a housewife. That’s the typical Chinese way: Even now, the wealthy families are still doing that. In our family, not one girl was working, only my two brothers were working.
Then there was the [Second Sino-Japanese] war. Just to make the story short, I walked during the Japanese invasion, I walked from Beijing to Chongqing. You know how many miles it was? Over 1,000 miles. I walked six months by foot. Six months.
I had just finished college, 20 years old. And I have no fear because I am young and honestly because I’m naive. I was more sheltered. The Japanese tried to capture, tried to kill all the students. So we walked at nighttime. We walked all night. In the daytime, we’d find a place to just doze off, because the Japanese airplanes used a machine gun that just killed all the students, all the innocent people. So my sister, number five, and I, we two walked from Beijing to Chongqing.
And one day, I’ve never forgotten. The Japanese airplane was flying so low, just using the machine gun. There was a leg over there, a hand... Another student said, “The enemy’s plane is here, run, run!” But then you’re so scared, you cannot run that fast.
Finally we found a little field. In northern China they grow sorghum everywhere. So we’re hiding in the sorghum field. And when the airplane left, I called for my sister. “Number five sister, where are you? Where are you?” Nothing happened. I was so scared. I thought something happened to her. Then my number five sister called me, and says, “number seven sister, are you okay? Are you okay? Where are you?” I could not talk, I was so scared.
We didn’t even get hurt, but some other students died. That’s an experience that you never forget.
In 1949, Cecilia, her husband, and her daughter took the last plane out of Shanghai before the Communists arrived (her son stayed with her sister in Taipei). They lived in Tokyo, where her husband worked at the Chinese embassy. They had a 350-seat restaurant in the heart of Tokyo called Forbidden City. Two years later, her son was able to join them, and her two children attended an American school in Japan. At that time, one of her sisters (number six, Sophie) was married to an “ABC,” an American-born Chinese person, who ran a newspaper in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He died of cancer a year after the two married, so Cecilia went to San Francisco to spend time with her sister, who found herself a young widow. She slept on the sofa in her sister’s apartment on the edge of Chinatown, near Powell and Clay streets.
My sister didn’t know how to cook, because we had two cooks at home; we never learned how to cook. Not only that, we were not allowed go to the kitchen, because the kitchen servants were all men. Every day we just walked down into Chinatown and ate. I still remember $3 for four dishes and one soup, including tea, rice, everything: Chop suey — mostly tofu and bean sprout — egg foo young, $3. One day we walked there to have lunch, then on the street, somebody called me, “Oh, Mrs. Chiang. We had a hard time finding you.” These were some friends I knew from Tokyo.
They said, “We came here, we want to open a Chinese restaurant. We saw the spot we like, but our English is so bad, we cannot negotiate with the landlord and we need your help.”
I thought my English was just as bad, but I said, “I will try my best and see what I can do for you.”
I set up a date and met the landlord. The landlord was an old Italian, with a very heavy accent. He said, “If you’re really interested this spot, you have to give me a deposit — somebody else now is interested.” I never worked. I didn’t know about business, how to negotiate.
The deposit was $10,000. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. My friend said, “We came here as visitor, we don’t have a bank account. We have only cash.”
The landlord said, “Can you give a check?” See how naive I was. I was also young. I send a check for $10,000. Later [those friends] backed out and went back to Japan, I got stuck. What am I supposed to do?
I was just so naive. Later, I just thought how stupid I was. I was totally ignorant. I didn’t know business, I didn’t know the value of the money. Then I thought, What am I going to say to my husband? How in the world am I going to tell him?
I tried to sell it, [but] nobody wanted it. I tried everything, and I felt ashamed. Finally, I said, “I better open the restaurant,” otherwise the $10,000 is just down the drain. I found a couple from Shandong, also from northern China, because I didn’t want anything Cantonese, anything chop suey. I really wanted to bring real Chinese cuisine to the USA. That’s how I opened.
Business at her restaurant, the Mandarin, was hard; the second year in particular was “really quite slow,” Cecilia says now. But she refused to ask her husband for money to fund the restaurant, instead going to the Small Business Bureau, where it was difficult to get a loan as a woman.
I invited them to the restaurant. They had to see it as [a viable] business. At that time I had a manager, who’d asked me a very silly question: “Why, every time I ask you another question, you say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it?’ Why do you have the confidence to think you can make it?”
I said, “You really want to know why? Because all those things on the menu, nobody, not even in New York, nobody serves it. I serve real Chinese food.”
My menu had about 300 items. I had sea urchin at Mandarin, I had shark fin. I told my manager, “You know what? I think my food is really good: Not only tasty, but good quality. Really good, all the best.” I went to Japan, Taiwan, brought back shark fin and sea urchin. I carried it back by the bag.
Also, not one Chinese restaurant had such service. All my waiters were from UC Berkeley, spoke good English, were from really nice families. Those days when you went to Chinatown: “Sweet and sour pork, No. 2.” They called numbers to serve. Those days, they just put the plate down, just threw it on the table. No tablecloths, no carpets in Chinatown. No seats, just a bench.
All my waiters tasted the food I served. They knew the ingredients, and could explain the dishes. So I said, “I have something totally different. I think I am going to make it.” But I still needed luck.
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So one day, a man came in. He’s Caucasian but spoke fluent Mandarin to me. He said, “Do you remember me? I’m the owner of Maxim’s.” Maxim’s was a very famous restaurant in China. He’s a Russian. He opened a restaurant called Alexis. He had dinner and said, “After I left China, this [is] the first time I’ve had such real, good Chinese food.”
He said he didn’t think I’d make it, because people were not familiar with my menu. And my location on Polk Street was bad — no parking, no walking, nothing. He said, “I’ll see what I can do, I really want to help you.”
Two days later, he came back with Herb Caen [a prominent San Francisco columnist]. I don’t know who that was. They ordered a lot of different things. He said, “Herb, I’m telling you this is real Chinese food.”
Herb said, “What’s the difference?”
He said, “Eat it and you’ll know.”
Herb Caen came back again.
And all of a sudden, my phone just kept ringing and ringing. I said, “This is crazy.” I didn’t have anybody. I was the one at the front desk. I answered the phone. I didn’t even have a janitor. I was the janitor. I did everything.
Finally it’s full. People were lining up: Because of the Herb Caen article, they wanted to come. I said, “What is Herb Caen? Who is Herb Caen?” People told me he’s the one that can make you, can break you. So Herb Caen really helped me a lot. The dinners really turned around.
At her restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cecilia introduced Americans to real Chinese food — and fed plenty of celebrities, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, friends of Herb Caen. Her son Philip also followed her into the restaurant industry, eventually founding the megahit P.F. Chang’s (he is no longer involved with the chain).
I wanted to know what Cecilia is most proud of. Her answers show just how impressive her career has been, but also the incredible life she has lived.
First thing, when I opened the restaurant, the hardest thing was everything was against me. First, because I’m a female ... I opened before Chez Panisse — Alice was not even open. I’m not Cantonese. The Cantonese treated me so badly, like a foreigner.
And then another thing is, I didn’t speak much English, because when you’re in a college, you learn A, B, C, D, and just how to read. But conversation is not easy. In those days, when I first came, I remember [there was] no television, only radio. So whenever you learned a few words, you put it in a notebook. Put in Chinese and English, try to make a sentence. That’s how I learned English. I’m very proud of it.
I had a good reputation, supported my family. Also we had four restaurants one time. Two Mandarins, one here, one in Beverly Hills. And also we had two little Mandarette. Actually, Mandarette is kind of P.F. Chang’s. That’s how [my son] started that.
I was the only one in my family who did all this. To me it’s pretty amazing, because now it’s nothing, actually, but you just think about ... I’m 98. When I started, not that young either. I was 30. In a foreign land. Didn’t know the background or the history of the USA. And that’s not very easy.
But also I’m very grateful to the United States, because it’s hard. This would never happen in China or Japan for a foreigner. This [is] something I’m very thankful for. But I didn’t plan anything like this.
I never planned anything. That’s why now when I meet young people from China or somewhere else who want to start a business, if they need my help, I always help. I’ve sponsored 26 people: my niece and nephew, an MIT professor, also bankers, architects, doctors, and they’re all doing really well.
I still help them. Because I know how hard it was when I started.
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As she mentioned in her daily routine, she’s an avid restaurantgoer. She is plugged into the restaurant scene today — she says her favorite restaurants right now are Benu and Z & Y — and is still known for having a razor-sharp palate. (When I wanted to start my mochi business, I had Cecilia taste my early creations.)
Fortunately, I grew up with good food, because my parents both know food very well. There’s a lot of people that say, “Oh, we love to eat, we love this, we love that.” Doesn’t mean they know the food. Even restaurant owners, I know quite a few. I mean, they really don’t have the palate, a good palate to taste good food and know the difference. I love them, but I know quite a few.
First thing, I have a very good nose, and also I have a very good tongue, because I used to eat out. I lived most my life in Asia, right? So I know Chinese food, I know Korean food, I know Japanese food, but French, Italian: I’m really learning. I never had anything to do with this food. I don’t know it. The only time I learn is when I travel, so I travel a lot.
When I was a student, that time I walked from village to village to the city, I learned the ways are different, the soil’s different. The local people were totally different. And each province had its own dialect. So I learned a lot about the food. About the vegetables, the weather, about the people’s characters. I think that helped a lot for my future about the restaurant business.
And then later I traveled with Alice Waters, a very good friend. We’ve been together to Europe ... maybe five times. We covered all these three-star Michelin restaurants. And one day we went to a restaurant in Europe that was hard to get into. But somehow James Beard said if we really wanted to go, he could call somebody and make a reservation for us.
So Alice, Marion Cunningham, and I went down there. They served a salad. And so Alice tastes it. And Alice said, “Marion, you try it. See what dressing is that.” Marion said something else. Later, Alice said, “Cecilia, have you tried this? Tell me what you think this dressing is.” I tasted it.
I said, “I’m not sure, but to me, it’s walnut oil.”
“Are you kidding, walnut oil? Who uses walnut oil for dressing?”
“Something like that. I’m not sure, but to me...” We called the waiter.
The waiter came. “Tell us, we cannot figure out this oil.” The waiter said it was walnut oil.
And Alice said to me, “You did it again.” Before that, we went to Taiwan. I took her to Taiwan and also Japan, field trips.
I’m just very lucky that I have a good nose, a good palate. This is something either you have or you don’t. Just like a lot of wealthy people are very wealthy, but they don’t have good taste. That’s something money cannot buy.
Belinda Leong is a James Beard Award-winning baker in San Francisco, where she runs B. Patisserie. Michelle Min is a food and travel photographer based in San Francisco. Editor: Hillary Dixler Canavan
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At 98, the iconic San Francisco restaurateur is as bold as ever. Now, she shares her life story with her friend, pastry chef Belinda Leong.
Editor’s note: Cecilia Chiang died on October 28, 2020, at the age of 100. This story, originally published in July 2018, sees Chiang discussing her life, career, and influence on Chinese food in America with close friend Belinda Leong, who notes “hers is a career any chef today would envy.” Looking back at her great successes at the time, Chiang said, “When I started, not that young. I was 30. In a foreign land. Didn’t know the background or the history of the USA. And that’s not very easy. This [is] something I’m very thankful for.”
It’s not an understatement to call Cecilia Chiang one of San Francisco’s most beloved culinary figures. Her first restaurant in town, the Mandarin, opened in 1961 — a time when the white Americans she needed to support her business were far more familiar with egg foo young and chop suey than they were with the traditional dishes she served, like beggar’s chicken and smoked tea duck. Like many restaurateurs, it took Cecilia some time to find her groove in San Francisco, but she did — and by 1968, she moved the Mandarin to a bigger space in Ghirardelli Square, where she presided for over 20 years. Then came the Mandarin Beverly Hills. And then came two more restaurants. Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower attended her cooking classes. Her cookbook is a must-have for anyone interested in Chinese cooking.
Hers is a career any chef today would envy.
I sat down with Cecilia earlier this year to talk, to hear her tell me her story (again), and to show the world the wonderful woman I’ve come to know as a close friend and mentor.
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Cecilia and I officially met at a party at restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s house. I was working at Restaurant Gary Danko at the time, and Cecilia had been in, and said hi, but it was at the party that we really connected. We started to get to know each other, and would see each other around town at events. When I wanted to leave the restaurant to open my own bakery, I turned to her for advice. I was hearing mixed things about the location I was considering. When Cecilia opened her first restaurant in San Francisco, she heard mixed things about her location too.
Cecilia: My first restaurant was on Polk Street. At that time, 1960, Polk Street had no offices, no nothing. Everybody said, “This is a really bad [location] ... This is a pensioner’s area.” I didn’t know at that time what “pensioner” meant.
Others said, “You don’t serve Cantonese food. You don’t serve chop suey; the only Chinese food people know is chop suey.” I said, “I just try to do my best.” I wanted to introduce the real Chinese food to America. That’s how I did it.
I explained that to you. I said, “Don’t listen to everybody, otherwise you’ll get very confused.” That’s how we got to know each other better. Sometimes you’d call me to ask a few questions, because after all, you weren’t experienced [running your own business]. Sometimes little things would happen, and it can hurt your feelings. I told you, “Really, not that important. You just do whatever you can.” I said, “You’ll be just fine.”
I see Cecilia a few times a week. Together we talk, cook, and go out to eat. I asked her to walk me through her typical day.
You probably know my age. I’m 98 now, but I’m still what you can call a self-disciplined person. Every morning I get up at about 9 o’clock, and I have my breakfast, and then make some important phone calls, and then I go to the park. I walk, and also I do my exercise. At my age, I cannot do a lot of very extreme things, like jogging. About three years ago, I fell. I had seven stitches on my head. I injured my shoulder and my leg. At home I use a walker. But I still manage to take myself out. I live alone, but every day I have my routine.
I don’t have a computer, so I read a newspaper, like the New York Times, every day. Not too much local news: the Chronicle, only the food section.
I go out a lot with friends. I love to eat out. When you cook Chinese, you cannot cook a little. Once you cook, you have to have somebody share with you. In Chinese food, the prep work is a lot: You have to cut it, wash it, and slice it, then you eat. That’s no fun at all, so I go out to eat. But once in a while, I get some friends, we just eat, cook together, and have a little fun, a little glass of wine or Champagne. We laugh a lot, talk silly things, have a good time.
I think it’s very important, especially when you’re getting older, to have really good friends, because your own kids marry, have children, they move to somewhere. You need good friends to keep you company.
My friends say, “Cecilia, you’re a really very disciplined person.” When I’m home alone, I don’t drink. I don’t touch any wine, anything. I just eat and get work done. If friends call me, I must return the call. If people ask me to do some work, I do it right away. I don’t drag on. I like to get things done. Every day I have a schedule I put on a piece of paper. I look at every day: “Oh, pretty good, I finished everything today,” then I can sleep better.
People ask me, “What’s the secret?” I have lived such a long life. The first thing I must say, I have to thank my ancestors. We have good genes. My father died at 98 during the Cultural Revolution. My mother died at 94. Those days in China, most people don’t know how poor they were. My father got a little bottle of this much cooking oil a week: Everything was on ration. They were so poor. My father wasn’t sick; they just starved to death, there was no food. Most people don’t know all these things. I think I’m very lucky I have good genes.
Another thing is I try to learn Chinese moderation. I really believe that: Never overeat, or never overdrink. Never overdo it.
Also, I work. I love to work. I take care of my flowers. I planted all these by myself. I fertilize them, I prune them back, I like to work with my hands. I think you do too, Belinda. Look at my hands. I like to use my hands and keep busy.
Cecilia Chiang was born in 1920 in Wuxi, a wealthy town near Shanghai, along the coast of the Chang Jiang River (also known as the Yangtze). When she was 4, her family — including her father’s extended family — moved to Beijing, at the time the capital of “old China.” As Chiang remembers it, her family moved to be a part of the new Republic of China. Even so, she still thinks of herself as a “southerner,” especially when it comes to food.
I’m from a family of 12 children by the same parents. I say that because those days, all the rich families had concubines. Legally you could have two, three wives, and they all lived under the same roof. On my husband’s side, his father had five concubines. Five. But we had no concubines, 12 kids, nine girls and three boys.
Fortunately, we all had good educations; we all went to college. But those days that was not very easy, because we didn’t have enough public schools, it was mostly all private school. Not too many families can afford to send all the kids: Usually people would say, “Oh, the girls ... after they grow up, they just get married, raise kids.” But my father said, “No, I want all my girls to go to college, have a good education.”
Another thing that was very important: Those days, in the Qing Dynasty, they bound your feet, and my mother had bound feet. When my number one sister (we call the eldest sister “number one”) was 4 years old, my mother started to bind her feet, but my father said, “No. You cannot do that.”
My mother said, “Oh, if I don’t bind her feet, who’s going to marry her? Nobody will marry her.” Because that’s the status. Only farmers, the peasants, have big feet. If you’re from a high-class, wealthy family, you have to have your feet bound. My father said, “Don’t worry about it. If nobody marries them, I’ll keep them at home.” This is very unusual. So in our family, we all have natural feet.
In the old days, the girls were not supposed to work. Once you go out to work, the family loses faith: “Oh, you must be poor [to] send your girl off.” Most girls always stayed home. With my older sisters, my father hired this opera-singer tutor.
My parents were very artistic people. They loved music. They loved opera, the grand opera, and they loved all the old paintings. My father loved all these old porcelains, and he also made all these little bonsai with a little tweezer. Doing the bonsai was very unusual. Also, my father played violin, Chinese violin, and then my older sisters started to sing the opera. My older brother also played the violin. I must say since I can remember, we really had a happy childhood.
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In summertime, we had a ranch, near Marco Polo Bridge, and you had to take [a] little train to go there. We had a little farm, so we grew all the vegetables, cabbage, carrots, squash, tomato, everything.
In China, we didn’t have ready-to-wear, ready-made things. Everything was custom made; you could not buy anything. We had a tailor and a shoemaker at home, because of all the kids: You had to make clothes and shoes for the 12 of us.
I think about that, about all these wonderful things we had when we were kids. It was very unusual. I mean, those days, everything you had, you just take for granted. But now, I think it’s very privileged: How many families could afford to do that?
After college, I think I probably thought I would maybe find somebody, get married. Like I told you, most of the girls, after their education, just get married, raise the kids, be a housewife. That’s the typical Chinese way: Even now, the wealthy families are still doing that. In our family, not one girl was working, only my two brothers were working.
Then there was the [Second Sino-Japanese] war. Just to make the story short, I walked during the Japanese invasion, I walked from Beijing to Chongqing. You know how many miles it was? Over 1,000 miles. I walked six months by foot. Six months.
I had just finished college, 20 years old. And I have no fear because I am young and honestly because I’m naive. I was more sheltered. The Japanese tried to capture, tried to kill all the students. So we walked at nighttime. We walked all night. In the daytime, we’d find a place to just doze off, because the Japanese airplanes used a machine gun that just killed all the students, all the innocent people. So my sister, number five, and I, we two walked from Beijing to Chongqing.
And one day, I’ve never forgotten. The Japanese airplane was flying so low, just using the machine gun. There was a leg over there, a hand... Another student said, “The enemy’s plane is here, run, run!” But then you’re so scared, you cannot run that fast.
Finally we found a little field. In northern China they grow sorghum everywhere. So we’re hiding in the sorghum field. And when the airplane left, I called for my sister. “Number five sister, where are you? Where are you?” Nothing happened. I was so scared. I thought something happened to her. Then my number five sister called me, and says, “number seven sister, are you okay? Are you okay? Where are you?” I could not talk, I was so scared.
We didn’t even get hurt, but some other students died. That’s an experience that you never forget.
In 1949, Cecilia, her husband, and her daughter took the last plane out of Shanghai before the Communists arrived (her son stayed with her sister in Taipei). They lived in Tokyo, where her husband worked at the Chinese embassy. They had a 350-seat restaurant in the heart of Tokyo called Forbidden City. Two years later, her son was able to join them, and her two children attended an American school in Japan. At that time, one of her sisters (number six, Sophie) was married to an “ABC,” an American-born Chinese person, who ran a newspaper in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He died of cancer a year after the two married, so Cecilia went to San Francisco to spend time with her sister, who found herself a young widow. She slept on the sofa in her sister’s apartment on the edge of Chinatown, near Powell and Clay streets.
My sister didn’t know how to cook, because we had two cooks at home; we never learned how to cook. Not only that, we were not allowed go to the kitchen, because the kitchen servants were all men. Every day we just walked down into Chinatown and ate. I still remember $3 for four dishes and one soup, including tea, rice, everything: Chop suey — mostly tofu and bean sprout — egg foo young, $3. One day we walked there to have lunch, then on the street, somebody called me, “Oh, Mrs. Chiang. We had a hard time finding you.” These were some friends I knew from Tokyo.
They said, “We came here, we want to open a Chinese restaurant. We saw the spot we like, but our English is so bad, we cannot negotiate with the landlord and we need your help.”
I thought my English was just as bad, but I said, “I will try my best and see what I can do for you.”
I set up a date and met the landlord. The landlord was an old Italian, with a very heavy accent. He said, “If you’re really interested this spot, you have to give me a deposit — somebody else now is interested.” I never worked. I didn’t know about business, how to negotiate.
The deposit was $10,000. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. My friend said, “We came here as visitor, we don’t have a bank account. We have only cash.”
The landlord said, “Can you give a check?” See how naive I was. I was also young. I send a check for $10,000. Later [those friends] backed out and went back to Japan, I got stuck. What am I supposed to do?
I was just so naive. Later, I just thought how stupid I was. I was totally ignorant. I didn’t know business, I didn’t know the value of the money. Then I thought, What am I going to say to my husband? How in the world am I going to tell him?
I tried to sell it, [but] nobody wanted it. I tried everything, and I felt ashamed. Finally, I said, “I better open the restaurant,” otherwise the $10,000 is just down the drain. I found a couple from Shandong, also from northern China, because I didn’t want anything Cantonese, anything chop suey. I really wanted to bring real Chinese cuisine to the USA. That’s how I opened.
Business at her restaurant, the Mandarin, was hard; the second year in particular was “really quite slow,” Cecilia says now. But she refused to ask her husband for money to fund the restaurant, instead going to the Small Business Bureau, where it was difficult to get a loan as a woman.
I invited them to the restaurant. They had to see it as [a viable] business. At that time I had a manager, who’d asked me a very silly question: “Why, every time I ask you another question, you say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it?’ Why do you have the confidence to think you can make it?”
I said, “You really want to know why? Because all those things on the menu, nobody, not even in New York, nobody serves it. I serve real Chinese food.”
My menu had about 300 items. I had sea urchin at Mandarin, I had shark fin. I told my manager, “You know what? I think my food is really good: Not only tasty, but good quality. Really good, all the best.” I went to Japan, Taiwan, brought back shark fin and sea urchin. I carried it back by the bag.
Also, not one Chinese restaurant had such service. All my waiters were from UC Berkeley, spoke good English, were from really nice families. Those days when you went to Chinatown: “Sweet and sour pork, No. 2.” They called numbers to serve. Those days, they just put the plate down, just threw it on the table. No tablecloths, no carpets in Chinatown. No seats, just a bench.
All my waiters tasted the food I served. They knew the ingredients, and could explain the dishes. So I said, “I have something totally different. I think I am going to make it.” But I still needed luck.
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So one day, a man came in. He’s Caucasian but spoke fluent Mandarin to me. He said, “Do you remember me? I’m the owner of Maxim’s.” Maxim’s was a very famous restaurant in China. He’s a Russian. He opened a restaurant called Alexis. He had dinner and said, “After I left China, this [is] the first time I’ve had such real, good Chinese food.”
He said he didn’t think I’d make it, because people were not familiar with my menu. And my location on Polk Street was bad — no parking, no walking, nothing. He said, “I’ll see what I can do, I really want to help you.”
Two days later, he came back with Herb Caen [a prominent San Francisco columnist]. I don’t know who that was. They ordered a lot of different things. He said, “Herb, I’m telling you this is real Chinese food.”
Herb said, “What’s the difference?”
He said, “Eat it and you’ll know.”
Herb Caen came back again.
And all of a sudden, my phone just kept ringing and ringing. I said, “This is crazy.” I didn’t have anybody. I was the one at the front desk. I answered the phone. I didn’t even have a janitor. I was the janitor. I did everything.
Finally it’s full. People were lining up: Because of the Herb Caen article, they wanted to come. I said, “What is Herb Caen? Who is Herb Caen?” People told me he’s the one that can make you, can break you. So Herb Caen really helped me a lot. The dinners really turned around.
At her restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cecilia introduced Americans to real Chinese food — and fed plenty of celebrities, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, friends of Herb Caen. Her son Philip also followed her into the restaurant industry, eventually founding the megahit P.F. Chang’s (he is no longer involved with the chain).
I wanted to know what Cecilia is most proud of. Her answers show just how impressive her career has been, but also the incredible life she has lived.
First thing, when I opened the restaurant, the hardest thing was everything was against me. First, because I’m a female ... I opened before Chez Panisse — Alice was not even open. I’m not Cantonese. The Cantonese treated me so badly, like a foreigner.
And then another thing is, I didn’t speak much English, because when you’re in a college, you learn A, B, C, D, and just how to read. But conversation is not easy. In those days, when I first came, I remember [there was] no television, only radio. So whenever you learned a few words, you put it in a notebook. Put in Chinese and English, try to make a sentence. That’s how I learned English. I’m very proud of it.
I had a good reputation, supported my family. Also we had four restaurants one time. Two Mandarins, one here, one in Beverly Hills. And also we had two little Mandarette. Actually, Mandarette is kind of P.F. Chang’s. That’s how [my son] started that.
I was the only one in my family who did all this. To me it’s pretty amazing, because now it’s nothing, actually, but you just think about ... I’m 98. When I started, not that young either. I was 30. In a foreign land. Didn’t know the background or the history of the USA. And that’s not very easy.
But also I’m very grateful to the United States, because it’s hard. This would never happen in China or Japan for a foreigner. This [is] something I’m very thankful for. But I didn’t plan anything like this.
I never planned anything. That’s why now when I meet young people from China or somewhere else who want to start a business, if they need my help, I always help. I’ve sponsored 26 people: my niece and nephew, an MIT professor, also bankers, architects, doctors, and they’re all doing really well.
I still help them. Because I know how hard it was when I started.
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As she mentioned in her daily routine, she’s an avid restaurantgoer. She is plugged into the restaurant scene today — she says her favorite restaurants right now are Benu and Z & Y — and is still known for having a razor-sharp palate. (When I wanted to start my mochi business, I had Cecilia taste my early creations.)
Fortunately, I grew up with good food, because my parents both know food very well. There’s a lot of people that say, “Oh, we love to eat, we love this, we love that.” Doesn’t mean they know the food. Even restaurant owners, I know quite a few. I mean, they really don’t have the palate, a good palate to taste good food and know the difference. I love them, but I know quite a few.
First thing, I have a very good nose, and also I have a very good tongue, because I used to eat out. I lived most my life in Asia, right? So I know Chinese food, I know Korean food, I know Japanese food, but French, Italian: I’m really learning. I never had anything to do with this food. I don’t know it. The only time I learn is when I travel, so I travel a lot.
When I was a student, that time I walked from village to village to the city, I learned the ways are different, the soil’s different. The local people were totally different. And each province had its own dialect. So I learned a lot about the food. About the vegetables, the weather, about the people’s characters. I think that helped a lot for my future about the restaurant business.
And then later I traveled with Alice Waters, a very good friend. We’ve been together to Europe ... maybe five times. We covered all these three-star Michelin restaurants. And one day we went to a restaurant in Europe that was hard to get into. But somehow James Beard said if we really wanted to go, he could call somebody and make a reservation for us.
So Alice, Marion Cunningham, and I went down there. They served a salad. And so Alice tastes it. And Alice said, “Marion, you try it. See what dressing is that.” Marion said something else. Later, Alice said, “Cecilia, have you tried this? Tell me what you think this dressing is.” I tasted it.
I said, “I’m not sure, but to me, it’s walnut oil.”
“Are you kidding, walnut oil? Who uses walnut oil for dressing?”
“Something like that. I’m not sure, but to me...” We called the waiter.
The waiter came. “Tell us, we cannot figure out this oil.” The waiter said it was walnut oil.
And Alice said to me, “You did it again.” Before that, we went to Taiwan. I took her to Taiwan and also Japan, field trips.
I’m just very lucky that I have a good nose, a good palate. This is something either you have or you don’t. Just like a lot of wealthy people are very wealthy, but they don’t have good taste. That’s something money cannot buy.
Belinda Leong is a James Beard Award-winning baker in San Francisco, where she runs B. Patisserie. Michelle Min is a food and travel photographer based in San Francisco. Editor: Hillary Dixler Canavan
from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2O5QdXu via Blogger https://ift.tt/3ky4ITL
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frolwriting · 7 years ago
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A Whole New World: Bloody Mary Part 1
Hey guys!  I’m sorry I haven’t posted this week.  I came down with Bronchitis, and it was also my birthday week.  I am SO close to 100 followers.  I seriously only need 1 more follower, and then we’ll have a giveaway for the postcard.  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
Fandom: Supernatural
Episode: Bloody Mary
Warnings: Blood and death
_______________________________________________________________________
We were in the Impala headed off to a weird case. I knew what this case was going to be. I was really terrified for this case. This episode always scared me. I had fallen asleep in the Impala because again I wasn't sleeping all that well again. I woke up Dean pulling into a building's parking lot. "Where are we?" I asked sitting up. Just then Sam jarred awake as well. Me and Dean looked at him concerned. He looked terrified for a second.
"I take it I was having a nightmare." He said.
"Yeah, another one." Dean said.
"Hey, at least I got some sleep. Kate did you get some sleep." I gave him a look, but I nodded when I saw Dean looking at me as well.
"You know, sooner or later we're gonna have to talk about this." He said. I didn't know if he was talking to Sam or me or both of us, but I nodded either way.
"Are we here?" Sam asked changing the subject.
"Yup. Welcome to Toledo, Ohio." Dean said. Sam grabbed the newspaper that was on the dash and looked at the obituary section. There was one circled.
"So what do you think really happened to this guy?" I asked.
"That's what we're gonna find out." He paused a second. "Let's go." We get out of the Impala and walk up to the building. "We're headed to the morgue. We need to see the body for ourselves." We walked around for a bit till we finally found the morgue. We walked in to find two desks, but there was only one person there. I looked at the name on the desk to make it not look suspicious when we say we're looking for the other man.
"Hey." The man said.
"Hey." Dean said.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, we're the med students that set up an appointment." I said instantly.
"Sorry?" The man asked.
"Did Doctor Figlavitch not tell you?" I asked sweetly. "We called him. We're working on our project down at Ohio State. He was supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse."
"Well, I'm sorry, he's at lunch."
"Oh well he said-" Dean started. "Oh, well, you know, it doesn't matter. You don't mind just showing us the body, do you?"
"Sorry, I can't. Doc will be back in an hour. You can wait for him if you want."
"An hour? Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then."
"Yeah." Sam said.
"Sir, these guys have put this off for way too long. I lost my dad and haven't been able to do this for a couple of weeks. I had hoped these two would at least do this part of the project, but obviously they didn't. Didn't you have some project partners that just drove you nuts like this?" I said getting some fake tears to come up.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your dad." He paused. "Yeah, I can show you the body." I smiled slightly.
"Thank you so much." The man got up and we headed into the part where all the bodies are. I didn't know if that sob story was going to work. The tech pulled the body out. Everything but the eyes looked normal. Eyes actually meaning no eyes.
"Now the newspaper said his daughter found him. She said his eyes were bleeding." Sam said. The tech put the sheet back on the man's head.
"More than that. They practically liquefied."
"Any sign of a struggle? Maybe somebody did it to him?" I suggested.
"Nope. Besides the daughter, he was all alone."
"What's the official cause of death?" I asked.
"Ah, Doc's not sure. He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up there, thats for sure."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"Intense cerebral bleeding. This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."
"But the eyes. What would cause something like that?" I asked.
"Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."
"Yeah? You ever see exploding eyeballs?"
"That's a first of me, but hey, I'm not the doctor."
"Hey, think we could take a look at that police report? You know for, uh…our project?" I asked.
"I'm not really supposed to show you that." Sam pulled out his wallet and gave the man some money. He showed us the report, and then we left.
"Might not be one of ours. Might just be some freak medical thing." Sam said.
"How many times in Dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?" Dean asked.
"Uh, almost never." Sam said.
"Exactly."
"All right, let's go talk to the daughter." Sam said.
"Hey good job with the sob story earlier." Dean said bumping me lightly.
"Bringing up memories of projects for anyone makes them feel bad for you."
"All right, let's go talk to the daughter." Sam said. We then headed to the house where the man died. I looked at my outfit and thankfully I was wearing black. The guys on the other hand were very much underdressed.
"Kate did you have a feeling we would be doing this?" Dean asked looking at me.
"Kind of." I said as we head towards the backyard. A man pointed towards us out as soon as we walk out. We walk up to who we saw was the daughters of the man.
"You must be Donna, right?" Dean asked as we got to her.
"Yeah." The older said.
"Hi, uh-we're really sorry." I said not really sure what to do because I don't know this girl too well.
"Thank you." She said.
"I'm Sam, this is Dean and Kate. We worked with your dad." Sam said. Donna looked at one of the girls and then back at us.
"You did?" She asked.
"Yeah. This whole thing. I mean, a stroke." Dean said.
"I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now." One of the other girls said.
"It's okay. I'm okay." Donna said.
"Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?" Dean asked.
"No." One of the younger girls turned around toward us.
"That's because it wasn't a stroke." She said.
"Lily, don't say that." Donna said.
"What?" Sam asked.
"I'm sorry, she's just upset."
"No, it happened because of me."
"Sweetie, it didn't."
"Lily." I said kneeling down to her. "Why would you say something like that?" I asked.
"Right before he died, I said it." She said getting more upset.
"You said what?" I asked.
"Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror." She paused. "She took his eyes, that's what she does."
"That's not why Dad died. This isn't your fault." Donna said.
"Hey, I used to do that all the time when I was little. Nothing ever happened. You saying Bloody Mary in the mirror three times did not kill your dad. Plus it was you who said it, not your dad, right?" I said.
"No, I don't think so." She said. I smiled and patted her shoulder.
"We need to get going. We just wanted to stop by and say our peace." The girls nodded. We left and decided to go check out the bathroom for ourselves.
"The Bloody Mary legend…Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?" Sam asked.
"Not that I know of." Dean said. Dean walked in while Sam and I kneeled down to check out the blood.
"I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it." Sam said.
"Yeah, well, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening."
"The place where the legend began?" Dean just shrugged and opened the cabinet.
"But according to the legend, the person who says B-" Sam stood and looked at the mirror and closes the door. "The person who says you know what gets it. But here-"
"Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah." Dean said.
"Right."
"Never heard anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the daughter's right. The way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out."
"It's worth checking in to." We walk out into the hallway to see one of the girls from outside in the hallway.
"What are you doing up here?" She asked.
"We-we, had to go to the bathroom." I said.
"Who are you?"
"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad." Dean said.
"He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself."
"No, I know, I meant-"
"And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming."
"All right, all right. We think something happened to Donna's dad." Sam said.
"Yeah, a stroke."
"That's not a sign of a typical stroke. We think it might be something else." Sam said.
"Like what?"
"Honestly? We don't know yet, but we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth."
"So, if you're gonna scream, go right ahead." Dean said.
"Who are you, cops?"
"Something like that."
"I'll tell you what. Here." Sam said as he pulled out a notebook and pen and wrote down his number. "If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary…just give us a call." He handed her the paper and we left. "Let's head to the library to see what we can find." Me and Dean nodded. We got into the Impala and left. We went in, and I noticed it was pretty dark in there. They must have terrible lighting in this place.
"All right, say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gonna be some sort of proof-like a local woman who died nasty." Dean said.
"Yeah but a legend this widespread it's hard. I mean, there's like 50 version of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch. Another says she's a mutilated bride, and there's a lot more."
"All right so what are we supposed to be looking for?" Dean asked.
"Every version's got a few things in common. It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So we've gotta search local newspapers-public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."
"Well that sounds annoying." Dean said.
"No it won't be so bad, as long as we…" That's when we noticed the computers had out of order signs on them. Sam chuckled. "I take it back. This will be very annoying." I sighed. It was this case where they had to do things old school. We searched long for two hours, when I noticed that Sam had fallen asleep. I smiled. I wanted to do that, but Dean would get frustrated if I fell asleep as well. We grabbed tons of records and headed back to the motel. After a while, Sam seemed to start whimpering in his sleep. I went to wake him up when Dean put a hand on me. He shook his head and went back to researching. After a while, Sam jolted awake. "Why'd you let me fall asleep?"
"Cause I'm an awesome brother. So what did you dream about?"
"Lollipops and candy canes." Sam said sarcastically.
"Yeah, sure."
"Did you find anything?"
"Oh besides a whole new level of frustration. No. We've looked at everything. A few local women, a Laura and a Catherine committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary."
"Maybe we just haven't found it yet." Sam said falling back on his bed.
"I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area, you know…eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just ain't Mary." Dean said. Just then Sam's phone started ringing.
"Hello?" There was a long pause when he finally jumped up. "Come on something came up with Charlie. We need to go." We hurried out of the motel to go where Charlie is.
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hogwarts-houses-as · 7 years ago
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Just a short story I wrote. Hope you like it! (sorry it's kind of long)
This is for the house cup, I’m a Hufflepuff
Amy’s notes: this is awesome! I’m going to give you 40 points, cause not only did I thoroughly enjoy reading this, it’s incredibly well written and I love the character of Madame Shoemaker. That means that hufflepuff has the lead again, with 145 points total.
King Oddfoot and Madame Shoemaker
My great, great, great, great, great, I don’t know how many greats, aunt ended up having quite an odd life, but you wouldn’t have expected things to turn out as they did if you’d made any kind of study of her before all the oddness began. She was young and pretty, but not especially beautiful. She was clever, but not sagacious or wise beyond her years. She wasn’t especially poor or rich, aristocratic or low-born, generous or greedy, virtuous or wicked, benevolent or cruel, civil or unsociable. There was one thing that could be considered slightly remarkable about her. She was the only daughter of a widower cobbler who had taught her his trade. When he died, she took over his shop. At first, people were uncertain about this turn of events, some were even outright opposed to it. After all, who in those days had ever heard of a female shoemaker? But she turned such a talented hand to her trade, that people quickly got used to it and this remarkable thing about her soon became rather unremarkable. In fact, she was so well recognized as being an excellent cobbler, that she was known to everyone as Ms. Shoemaker and, as it turns out, is the original ancestor of all families with the surname Shoemaker alive today.
In truth, my great, great, great, great, great, I don’t know how many greats, aunt, that is to say Ms. Shoemaker, could have gone through her whole life without doing anything but make shoes and been perfectly content. But she was also perfectly content with what did end up happening in her life, which was much more than just making shoes. She was the sort of person to take everything, not in stride so much as in drift: very little could galvanize her into any more action than she intended to offer.
So one day, when a very official-looking letter arrived on a very official-looking tray in the hand of a very official-looking courier who stepped from a very official-looking carriage and gave a very official knock on the door of Ms. Shoemaker’s shop, she could hardly be bothered to go to the door and instead sent one of the young helpers who worked in the shop serving the customers to see who it was banging on her front door and what it was they wanted. Even after she was told exactly how official and fussy the man at the door was, Ms. Shoemaker refused to leave her workshop but instead used her shop helper as a go-between. Of course the courier couldn’t just leave all his well-maintained official-ness at the door and he took a great deal of time and words to introduce himself and explain why he had come; but when it was finally conveyed to Ms. Shoemaker that this official, fussy, long-winded man had brought a letter for her, she still refused to allow him through into her workshop, and neither did she come out into the front, but insisted that the courier entrust the letter to her helper so that the boy could bring it to her.
However, when the letter was at last gently placed on her workbench near her elbow, but well out of her way, she took no notice of it and continued with her work. After the shop boy reemerged from the workshop, the courier asked if Mistress Shoemaker had given any reply, and the poor boy was forced to admit that Ms. Shoemaker hadn’t even bothered to read it, at which point the official, fussy, long-winded, pompous man could stand for such impertinence no longer and stormed through into the workshop, despite the protestations of the various shop helpers, and demanded that Mistress Shoemaker acknowledge his importance and that of the letter he carried. Ms. Shoemaker turned around slowly and gave him such a look over her spectacles along the line of her straight nose that after a while even this official, fussy, long-winded, pompous, cockalorum of a man began to feel much like a child who has had a tantrum and who knows they are much too old for such foolishness. But finally, Ms. Shoemaker seemed to decide that the easiest way of getting rid of her unwanted company was to read the letter and send him away with an answer for whoever had dispatched him with it. She turned and picked up the letter, opening it very slowly, but reading it quickly.
It was from a king who Ms. Shoemaker had never heard of, as he ruled a region a few countries to the East. However, he had apparently heard of her, and her talent in her profession. The letter was a request that she travel to his court in order to craft a collection of various types of shoes for him, and alluded to the fact that his feet were so odd that no shoemaker had ever been able to cobble together shoes that he found comfortable. In fact, though Ms. Shoemaker was unaware of it at the time, he was generally known as The Unshod King, due to his practice of wearing no shoes at all; though after she was through, he permanently became King Oddfoot. 
At this time, however, she knew nothing of him at all nor had she any name for him nor did she have any inclination to agree to his request or favorably answer his summons. So after reading through his letter, she turned to the courier and told him to go back to his king and convey to his royal majesty her sincerest and most heartfelt indifference at the fact that she couldn’t be bothered to travel to his country and that if he wanted her to make even one slipper for him, he would have to come to her.
The courier, now very much peeved by Ms. Shoemaker’s blasé disposition and discourteous behavior, was more than happy to leave without pressing the issue any further and sincerely hoped in his heart that something unpleasant would befall her, feeling that he would be especially pleased if that unpleasant thing issued from the quarter of The Unshod King. Then, as part of the royal retinue and current representative of the king, he would feel that he had, at least in a way, been personally vindicated.
Though the courier’s opinion was evident, Ms. Shoemaker was unconcerned.
It was several weeks before anything further came of the letter, and until the precise moment The Unshod King’s retinue halted in front of Ms. Shoemaker’s shop, no one had any inkling that anything further would come of it at all. However, there had been plenty of talk around town about what may become of it and so as soon as the King’s retinue was recognized, which it easily was by the crest of a wreath comprised of twenty golden horseshoes (the King’s own little joke), they fled the shop immediately, as much out of self-preservation as to give themselves a better vantage point from which to watch the spectacle unfold.
Because of his unshod state, in conjunction with his royal status, the king could not simply exit his extravagant carriage and stride through the grime of the street into the shop. Instead, there was a group of servants whose only job was to unroll a purple velvet carpet, of which half a dozen lengths were kept on hand at all times, before the king, who so subtly indicated his desired direction of travel with his eyes and the turn of his head, that it almost seemed that he could convey his thoughts directly to the carpet rollers, or shall I say unrollers.
In this way, he traversed not only the street, but also the steps and the shop until he stood in the middle of Ms. Shoemaker’s workshop. Immediately, a great chair of the sort that could almost be labeled a throne, made of darkly-lacquered wood decorated with gold gilt paint and upholstered with the same rich purple velvet as the long carpet, was whisked in behind and no sooner had the king entered than he was seated upon it with his feet resting on a plush, matching footstool. In all this time, much to the dismay of the spectators, not a glimpse of The Unshod King’s feet had been seen, for he wore a very long robe that swept all the way to the ground and took carefully measured steps so as not to reveal his odd qualities. After the king had been seated, everyone was sent away except a small number of the royal guard, who stationed themselves at the two doors and various windows, and Ms. Shoemaker, for obvious reasons. At this moment, the king drew back the hem of his robe dramatically to reveal his eponymous feet. The guards all averted their eyes out of respect, but Ms. Shoemaker peered in fascination at the king’s singular lower extremities (she was a shoemaker, after all).
“What odd feet you have!” she exclaimed. This was simultaneously terribly obvious and a drastic understatement.
The Unshod King’s feet were almost entirely flat, except where his toes turned up sharply and hung suspended in midair, dragging some of the foot behind into the air along with them and giving the front of his feet a distinct curve. What is more, the middle toes on each foot were by far the longest, while their flanking toes were about half as short, and the next in line were half again, so that the pinky and big toes were barely distinguishable, and the formation of his toes was that of a sharp point at the end of each foot. Finally, his left foot was smaller than his right, being about three fourths the size of the other.
“Many a cobbler has striven to shod me,” the king began, “however, no shoemaker in my kingdom, from greatest to least, for that is how we proceeded, has been able to craft for me suitable footwear. I highly doubt that you will be able to achieve this task, so I have not come with any hope of aid, but I have instead traveled all this way to see what sort of woman would answer a king’s summons by saying that she ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to obey.”
“Now that you’re here, I’m sure you have seen why you have come,” Ms. Shoemaker said. “And now that you’ve come, I can certainly see why you are here! As to my inability to provide you with what you seek, I must contend that you are quite wrong.”
Ms. Shoemaker’s words had precisely the effect she had wished, for the king’s face darkened at how casually she gainsaid him. “You think that you could shod these ‘odd feet’?” The Unshod King asked. He held up his hand. “Listen to the requirements before you answer. I require an entire collection of shoes in various styles suited to assorted uses and ensembles. They must fit me comfortably, but also mask the inequality that exists between my feet. You think you can accomplish this?”
“I assure you, I will meet all these requirements and more,” Ms. Shoemaker insisted.
“Forgive me if I have my doubts,” the king said. “Very well, you will accompany me back to my palace to begin your work.”
“I think not.”
The king stared at her blankly.
“I shall remain here until I am ready to begin actual construction on the shoes, at which point I will travel to your palace in my own company.”
The Unshod King almost made a comment about how poor her company would be in that case, but restrained himself. “But how will you do any work without having access to my feet?”
“I shall take measurements,” Ms. Shoemaker replied. And with that she unceremoniously shoved aside the king’s footstool and replaced it with one of her own of simple wood with a piece of paper pinned to its surface upon which she traced the shape of his feet. Next, she measured everything of him from the knee down that could possibly be measured: the distance from each of his toes to his heel; the distance from each of his toes to his ankle; the distance from the floor to the tip of each of his toes; the width of his foot at his toes, the balls of his feet, where the arch of his foot would have been, if he’d had one, and at his heel; the lengths from his heel to his ankle, from his ankle to his knee, and from his knee to his heel; the circumference of his leg above his knee, the circumference of his leg below his knee, the circumference of his knee, the circumference of his calf at its thickest, the circumference of his calf at its thinnest, right above his ankle, and the circumference of his ankle; and many others besides that made sense to no one but her.
Throughout this, the king remained still and quiet. He had rightly decided that arguing with her was as infuriating as it was pointless. When she declared that she was done, he took his leave and returned to his own kingdom where he continued living life much as he always had.
Ms. Shoemaker, on the other hand, was a frenzy of activity. She wouldn’t even let her assistants help her and kept her plans secret. But at last, everything was ready and Ms. Shoemaker set out upon her journey. As she went, she took special notice of the state of things in King Oddfoot’s kingdom (for she had begun to call him this in her own mind as she worked). Although King Oddfoot was not himself an especially evil or tyrannical man, a number of his predecessors had been, and King Oddfoot did nothing to abolish the oppressive remnants of their rule. Although one could argue that he was not directly culpable for such policies, no one could deny King Oddfoot’s negligence. Seeing all of this, Ms. Shoemaker made up her mind about a number of things.
When she arrived at the palace, she was immediately taken to an audience with the king.
“Have you come to tell me you have realized your mistake, that this task is, in fact, too much for you?” the king asked, after they had worked their way through an appropriate number of pleasant exchanges.
“Quite the opposite, in fact,” Ms. Shoemaker said calculatingly, “I have found the task much simpler than I anticipated.”
This annoyed the king. “Surly you cannot mean this. Not one of the shoemakers in all the land could find an acceptable way to shod me. Perhaps you are overconfident. Perhaps when it comes time for the shoes to be fitted, you will find yourself at a deficit.”
“No, I’m quite confident in my work.” She gave a little laugh. “How odd that not one of your own cobblers could be as clever as I.”
This irked the king even more. “On my part, I am confident that your brash words will only make any failure harder to bear and will bring disgrace back upon you.”
“You certainly seem to have a very low opinion of me,” Ms. Shoemaker said.
“You have a high enough opinion of yourself for the both of us,” the king countered.
“I say my work will be a stunning success. The shoes I make you will fit like a second skin. However, you insist I will fail. In light of our complete confidence in our own positions, I propose a bet. If I win, I get to rule your country for a week and you may not undo any of my decrees for a whole year afterward, excepting, of course, any that gainsay the original terms of our wager.”
“And if I win?” the king asked in an interested tone.
“What terms would you think a suitable counter-wager?”
“You will have to go everywhere unshod for a week and afterward make nothing but boots for my soldiers for a year.”
“I would agree to these terms, except who shall judge the worthiness of my creations? You cannot admit that you do not have a personal interest in my loss, for it is your gain.”
“Is my honor not enough?”
“Every man hates to lose. A king even more so. I would hate to put you in such a position where you will be so tested and tried.”
“I assume you have a solution ready for proposal?”
“You assume correctly,” Ms. Shoemaker said with a smile. “Suppose we hide my goods among those of other cobblers? Then, you would simply choose which fit the best. However, as an added assurance, you would be blindfolded, so that you would be judging the shoes based solely on how they fit. We would have a number of rounds, each for a different kind of shoe. If you chose my shoes, a point for me. If not, a point for you. Whoever has the most points at the end, wins the bet.”
“It seems a well-considered proposal.”
“Then the bargain is struck?”
“Indeed. I shall draw up a contract and have it read to the entire capital, to give me extra reason to deny any temptation to transgress against my honor.”
They struck hands in agreement and toasted to each other’s luck.
Two weeks later, Ms. Shoemaker announced that her projects were at last complete. By that time, the whole capital was abuzz about the wager. With so many of his subjects nearly in a frenzy about his bet with Ms. Shoemaker, The Unshod King agreed to hold the contest in full view of the largest square in the capital. Many of his subjects traveled from distant cities, towns, and villages to witness the settling of the wager. There were to be six rounds to cover the basic classifications of all the shoes Ms. Shoemaker had created (though she had, of course, designed and manufactured many more than six pairs). The categories were: boots, riding boots, sandals, slippers, simple everyday shoes, and more elaborate shoes for special occasions. King Oddfoot, as everyone was slowly coming to call him, would still allow no one to see his feet, so each time he donned a new pair of shoes, he turned away from the crowd. Though King Oddfoot was blindfolded, the shoes were displayed in full view of the crowd, and it did not take them long to figure out which shoes were the creations of Ms. Shoemaker, or to applaud her genius: each pair of shoes she had created had upturned toes. From the outside, this seemed like just a peculiar fashion statement; but of course, on the inside, they fit the form of King Oddfoot’s feet perfectly. She had also made each left shoe differently from each right shoe, so that on the outside, they appeared to be the same size, but on the inside still fit his mismatched feet snugly.  Even though the crowd never saw King Oddfoot’s feet that day, they all knew the exact ways in which his feet were so odd, simply by nature of the fact that they were not supposed to know. So they recognized the creative genius contained in Ms. Shoemaker’s handiwork. Even the sandals were so expertly made that though they left much of both feet bare, both feet still seemed equal in size.
Round after round King Oddfoot chose Ms. Shoemaker’s shoes as the best-fitting. He was not permitted to know the score until the very end, lest it affect his judgments. However, the excitement of the crowd could not be contained, so even blindfolded King Oddfoot knew something interesting was happening, though in whose favor things were leaning he couldn’t guess.
At long last, the winner of the last round was declared (naturally it was Ms. Shoemaker’s pair). King Oddfoot removed his blindfold and signaled for the score to be announced. Ms. Shoemaker had won every single round. Immediately, King Oddfoot requested that Ms. Shoemaker’s shoes from the last round be replaced on his feet. When this was done, he stood and dramatically cast off the long outer robe he was accustomed to wearing, at last feeling free to escape his self-enforced confinement without fear of ridicule. His long robes had always made him seem aged and monkish, but he was, in fact, a quite handsome young man, of average height and well-proportioned, excluding his feet, of course, which were, as has been previously established, odd. However, now that the oddness of his feet was so expertly disguised, he began to slowly collect an aura of confidence. He strode over to Ms. Shoemaker and knelt before her, declaring her ad interim ruler of the land, and then announced his intentions of taking a week-long vacation during which he would be completely unreachable. Of course, he still kept tabs on what Madame Shoemaker, as she was dubbed by the people, was up to, in case it became necessary for him to intervene. It never became necessary and King Oddfoot had a very relaxing week.
Madame Shoemaker, for her part, was extremely busy repealing all of the outdated, cruel, tyrannical laws left over from the dark years in the country’s past, and creating a more civilized judicial system. Even though her reign lasted only a week, in accordance with the terms of the wager, she needed no more time than that to win the hearts of the people.
The second clause of the wager forbid King Oddfoot from repealing any of her decisions for at least a year. After that time had passed, he realized that it would have been very difficult to get the country to revert back to the old system; not that he felt particularly inclined to do so. For one, he himself had come to realize the cruelty in many of the old ways. But secondly, and perhaps more persuasively, the country was flourishing under the new system: his people were happier and more industrious, the economy was blossoming, the country was becoming more prosperous, and trade was increasing, especially the export of pointed-toed shoes, which had become quite popular not only in his own land, but also in neighboring countries. And of course, the highest demand was for authentic Madame Shoemaker pointed-toed shoes.
Madame Shoemaker did go back to her shoes after stepping down from the throne, but she did not return to her own shop in her own land for various reasons. Of course, one reason was that demand for her pointed-toed shoes was very high in that land and she had the support of King Oddfoot, who granted her a loan to start a business. Also, after her week as ruler, she had become quite popular. In fact, there were rumors of people plotting to put her back on the throne, something she openly opposed.
Perhaps it was because of these rumors that King Oddfoot did as he did. Perhaps there were other reasons. There was a sort of affection between King Oddfoot and Madame Shoemaker, though how it could be characterized is impossible to decide. In any case, he proposed, offering Madame Shoemaker the positon of Queen.
She turned him down, saying she would rather have the title of Official Royal Cobbler, a position that gave her political influence, but no political obligations; an arrangement she said suited her quite well as she had no desire to mire herself in politics any more than she already had with her week on the throne.
There were, of course, various rumors surrounding King Oddfoot and Madame Shoemaker. Some insisted that they had secretly gotten married, others claimed that even though they were not married they were still very close, while others claimed that they hated each other for their entire lives and even tried to murder each other on various occasions. Some rumors claimed that King Oddfoot had actually been cursed by an evil witch when he was a baby and that Madame Shoemaker was a good witch who had lifted the curse with the power of true love or some such nonsense. Whatever was between the two of them, let me give you a quote from my great, great, great, great, great, I don’t know how many greats, aunt, Madame Shoemaker’ journal on the subject of such rumors and inquiries: “None of any of that is any of your damn business.”
The end. 
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cokeisrael4-blog · 5 years ago
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Can South Philly Hold On to What’s Always Made It Unique?
City
It’s our most famous neighborhood, defined by its immigrants and its characters, by intermingling (sometimes clashing) cultures — and by near-constant change. Where does it go from here?
The rapidly changing South Philly. Photograph by Adam Englehart
In the late summer of 1981, very much against my Catholic mother’s wishes, I had just moved into a rowhouse at 17th and Naudain — then the very bottom edge of Center City — where my new boyfriend lived. Mom, who’d recently been diagnosed with cancer, was coming for her first visit, reluctantly. The neighborhood was admittedly sketchy — most of Center City was, back then — but I was proud of our chic little home, with its new sofa and drapes and the garden planted out back. Mom knocked, I opened the door, and she peered past me into the narrow hallway.
“Oh my God,” she said, and not in a good way. “It’s just like Morris Street.”
That was where my mom grew up: 128 Morris Street, in the heart of South Philly. A hundred or so years ago, for reasons that are lost in the sands of time, Casimir Norvilas, a Lithuanian immigrant, moved there. He was still in his 20s, but he’d already lived an exciting life, having served in the merchant marine and fought Pancho Villa on the U.S.-Mexican border.
In Philly, perhaps calling on some leatherworking skills acquired on the horse farm near Vilnius where he grew up, he opened a shoemaker shop. He married a fellow Lithuanian immigrant, bought the house on Morris Street, and had three daughters, the eldest of whom was my mom.
The part of the city where he settled was traditionally a point of entry for immigrants. It was close to the docks where ships arrived from the Old World; those same docks provided jobs for laborers whose only skill was brute force. The first big flush of migrants to the city had been Irish, pried from their hearths in the 1840s by a potato blight that caused widespread starvation, killed a million people, and drove another two million to exit the Emerald Isle. The next was Italian, propelled by the “unification” of small city-states and the breakdown of the peninsula’s feudal system. Some seven million mostly Southern Italian peasants decamped for foreign parts.
The Morris Street house where the author’s mom grew up. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson
Since then, wave after wave of newcomers has inhabited the rowhouses of South Philly, on both the east and west sides of Broad Street — Southern blacks with the collapse of Reconstruction, Eastern European Jews starting in the 1880s, more Italians after World War II ended. Mexicans moved north under the 1942 bracero (“one who works using his arms”) program, and smaller tides of Cubans and Puerto Ricans and Vietnamese and Cambodians and Liberians landed here, too. South Philly was a place to gain a foothold, to begin anew, to build something from nothing for impoverished families from all over the world. Then your kids got the hell out.
That was what Mom did. She made her way to Girls’ High, which was then at 17th and Spring Garden, and after graduating went even further up Broad Street to Temple, where she met my dad. Together, they began a family and a series of successive moves away from South Philly, to Willow Grove and Glenside and finally bucolic Doylestown. They raised a solid middle-class clan of four kids and a dog on a third of an acre there.
Which is why, I think, the house on Naudain Street so unnerved Mom. When you’ve spent a lifetime trying to escape the past, it can’t be easy to realize that your child just cheerfully leaped back in.
That was the only time Mom ever visited me and Doug, who eventually became my husband. She died three months later. I’d like to think it wasn’t seeing the house.
The workingman’s homes that make up Philly’s rows were built in the mid-to-late 19th century, as the city underwent rapid industrialization. But there were rowhouses even before that; witness the city’s oldest block, Elfreth’s Alley. William Penn envisioned his city filled with gracious single homes set amid green lawns, but it didn’t take long for speculators to slice up the blocks he laid out and eke the most from them by erecting rowhomes. The city was built atop clay, which is what you make bricks from, which is why the rowhomes were brick.
I have the vaguest memories of the house on Morris Street; Poppy’s shoemaker shop and the penny-candy place next door made more of an impression on me. I know this, though: Mom’s parents, like so many new arrivals here, found the fact that they were allowed to own land amazing. Slaves from the South and serfs from the Baltic States and paesani from Italy had all fled societies in which “real estate” belonged to the master or czar or king. To buy for yourself even the postage-stamp property beneath a rowhouse was a marvelous thing.
Which is one reason newcomers stayed put. “People would move to South Philly because it was close to jobs on the waterfront or in the garment factories,” says Bryant Simon, a history professor at Temple. “Then they created a culture that reminded them of where they were from.” They opened butcher shops and bakeries, planted grapevines in tiny backyards, built churches and fraternal organizations. They dug in, deep.
A window near 8th and Tasker. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson
Southern Italian immigrants, notes Penn city planning and urban studies professor Domenic Vitiello, had a particular pattern of migration: “They settled in groups of people from the same town. You could identify them — this block from this village in Abruzzo, this block from this village in Calabria.” Mexican immigration, Vitiello adds, would later follow this same pattern.
My mom’s mom’s sister, Adeline, married an Italian my grandfather fondly called “Goombah Jimmy.” We only visited Adeline’s house, on Wolf Street near Broad, for the Mummers Parade and the occasional funeral, but it stood out because it was so unlike anything else in my bland suburban life. People drank, hard; everyone was loud; the women and the food — Italian sausages, kielbasa and pierogies — smelled wonderful; and in an upstairs bedroom there hung the biggest painting I had ever seen, a full-size reproduction of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, with all that bare-breasted flesh. Who could look away?
I went back to South Philly recently and checked out the house on Wolf Street. There were potted plants taking the sun beside the front stoop. Mom’s people were farmers at heart. She would have liked that.
I went to Morris Street, too, to see what was left of number 128. It looked good — the trim all freshly painted, a fancy ornamental door. There was a planter beside it, too. The houses on Mom’s row are tiny — under a thousand square feet, with two bedrooms and a single bath. Yet when she was a kid, her family took in a boarder to help with the bills, which wasn’t rare. A 1904 survey of the area from 8th Street to 9th Street between Carpenter and Christian showed that 41 of the 167 houses were occupied by three or more families. That’s a tight squeeze.
Bryant Simon says you can tell when a neighborhood gentrifies by the house numbers; newcomers prefer sans serif fonts. There’s a lot of sans serif on Mom’s block. Another clue: the four new three-story townhomes with garages and roof decks. They have three bedrooms and two and a half baths and, you can bet, one family apiece.
Mom’s old house sold for $43,000 in 1995; today, its estimated worth is $218,985. The big difference between people buying in South Philly these days and those from the old days is that the latest arrivals don’t land here with nothing. They bring along advanced degrees and SUVs and Mitchell Gold sofas and IRAs.
Back in 2011, Kate Mellina and her husband, Dave Christopher, moved from Asbury Park to Philadelphia, where Mellina had grown up: “In the Northeast — St. Timothy’s parish. But my dad was from South Philly. St. Monica’s. You forget how Philadelphia is defined by its parishes.” The couple, both artists, were looking for an area that was “up-and-coming,” Mellina says, and they bought a house in East Passyunk, overlooking the famed Singing Fountain. “It was not quite as developed then,” Mellina says, “but you could see it was on its way.”
Not long after they moved in, one of the couple’s friends happened on a vintage photo album at Lambertville’s Golden Nugget flea market and recognized some famous faces posing with the grinning strangers inside: Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Liberace. On the back of the album was the photographer’s studio address, on East Passyunk Avenue. “Our friend knew we’d moved in around there, so he gave it to us,” Mellina explains. “He said, “Here’s your housewarming present — find out who these people are!”
Naturally, Mellina says, she started by showing the album to her neighbor, “Frank from around the corner, who’s been here forever.”
“Oh, that’s Palumbo’s!” Frank said.
“We were like, ‘What’s Palumbo’s?’” Mellina had never heard of the now-defunct nightclub at 8th and Catharine that hosted everyone from Sinatra to Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. back in the day. It started life as a boardinghouse for immigrants sailing from Italy; legend has it they’d arrive speaking no English but with signs around their necks that read PALUMBO’S.
Plenty of Palumbo’s stars were homegrown. South Philly’s rowhouses all looked alike on the outside, but they sheltered singular individuals inside. The roll call just of those who passed through South Philly High at Broad and Snyder is startling: Marian Anderson, Mario Lanza, Chubby Checker, Jack Klugman, Frankie Avalon, bandleader Lester Lanin, composer Vincent Persichetti, NBA founder Eddie Gottlieb, world heavyweight boxing champ Tim Witherspoon, mayor Frank Rizzo, boxing trainer Angelo Dundee … It’s hard not to feel optimistic in a neighborhood where just a few streets over, a Jewish punk named Eddie Fisher grew up to divorce Debbie Reynolds so he could marry Elizabeth Taylor. America. What a country.
“South Philly is a real neighborhood,” says Kate Mellina. “It’s a mix of people whose families have been here for three or four generations — in the same houses — and new people moving in with dogs and babies.”
Since the album was foisted on her, Mellina has visited senior centers and the local library in her quest to identify the non-famous people in its pages. She discovered that it had belonged to Arthur Tavani, a writer for a little local newspaper. “His sister was still alive then,” she recalls, “living in the same house they grew up in. She greeted me like a long-lost daughter.” Mellina also talked to Carmen Dee, who’d been the bandleader at Palumbo’s, which burned down in 1994. And she’s chronicled her efforts at a website, Unexpected Philadelphia, that lets you scroll through the photos in case there’s anyone you know.
“South Philly is a real neighborhood,” says Mellina. “It’s a mix of people whose families have been here for three or four generations — in the same houses — and new people moving in with dogs and babies. Everyone seems to get along. You take your lawn chairs out front in the summer, and people parade by with the kids and the dogs.” Asbury Park, she notes, actually was a small town — “but it didn’t have that small-town feel.”
The small town has gone big-time over the past decade. Townsend Wentz, Nick Elmi, Chris Kearse, Lou Boquila, Lynn Rinaldi, and Lee Styer and Jessie Prawlucki have all opened restaurants along this stretch of East Passyunk. The neighborhood has coffee shops, twinkly string lights, a British pie shop, and Artisan Boulanger Patissier. You’ll find dim sum and doggie boutiques, a retro typewriter repair shop, breweries and bike stores, not to mention a yoga studio that recently hosted a visit from an alpaca. It’s a freaking hipster paradise.
A block or so north, the paradise ends.
Philly’s Italian Market, which stretches along 9th Street roughly from Dickinson to Fitzwater, started out as a Jewish market. It’s now mostly Asians and Latinos who run the iconic sidewalk stalls. To go from twinkly Passyunk Square to, say, Giordano’s produce stand just above Washington is sort of a shock. The market hasn’t gentrified. It still has flies in summer and burn barrels in winter, and wooden skids and flattened cardboard boxes are piled everywhere. (“That’s not real trash,” Bryant Simon teases when I raise the subject of the market. “They bring it out every morning so it looks like a scene from Rocky.”) It also has guys who pick out your tomatoes for you, thank you very much, and put them in a bag. The area is a good example of the challenges of gentrification. “How do you maintain the market while the neighborhood changes?” asks Simon. “That’s a delicate balance. Tourists can only buy so many vegetables.” Anthony’s Italian Coffee & Chocolate House has stood here for four generations. Now it has online ordering, and seasonal lattes like the Spring Fling and the Crème Brûlée.
There have been fitful efforts to start up a Business Improvement District for the market, so merchants can kick in to gussy things up. A few years back, Michelle Gambino, business manager for the South 9th Street Business Association, described her vision for the future, with organic foods and craft booths alongside the homely produce carts: “We’re hoping that the look will continue to be Old World, but just upscale.”
To add to the balancing act, New York developers have so far unveiled three iterations of an apartment building planned for the heart of the market, right at 9th and Washington, ranging from six to eight stories in height. The latest version has 157 units. Merchants and shoppers panicked when plans showed the driveway to the building’s underground parking right on 9th Street, where it will surely disrupt the market’s traffic and pedestrians. So much for Old World.
“There are two processes going on in South Philly right now,” says Bryant Simon. “Longtime residents are being displaced by new immigrants and by high-end creative-class people.” In other words, old South Philly’s getting squeezed from both sides.
The Italian isn’t the only market in South Philly. The busy commercial stretch of Washington between 6th and 16th earned the soubriquet “Little Saigon” thanks to immigrants who settled there after the Vietnam War. (Condé Nast Traveler once dubbed the area “Pho Row.”) The city’s Asian population has continued to grow, jumping by 42 percent from 2000 to 2010; Philly is now home to the East Coast’s largest population of Vietnamese immigrants. At Horace Furness High, near Mom’s old house, 48.5 percent of the kids are Asian.
In Little Saigon, too, change is coming. Developers have proposed new rowhomes and duplexes, plus parking spots, on the site of the Hoa Binh shopping center, which occupies almost an entire block at Washington and 16th. The current shopping center isn’t pretty. But neither are most newly built rowhomes, when you think about it.
There may be no better example of South Philly’s metamorphosis than what used to be the Edward W. Bok Technical High School at 8th and Mifflin, where neighborhood kids not bound for college once studied tailoring and plumbing, hairdressing and bricklaying. After closing down in 2013, the Art Deco building, constructed in the 1930s by Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration, was reborn as BOK, an urban playground with a roof-deck bar, boutiques, “maker spaces,” tattoo artists and, of course, yoga. “I think BOK is a fascinating symbol,” says Bryant Simon. “There are two processes going on in South Philly right now. Longtime residents are being displaced by new immigrants and by high-end creative-class people who value urban spaces and are knowledge workers.” In other words, old South Philly’s getting squeezed from both sides.
We tend to think of “South Philly” as the Rocky world that’s east of Broad Street, but Point Breeze and Grays Ferry are South Philly, too. They were settled along familiar lines, first by European Jews, then by Italians and Irish, and finally by blacks driven west from their original stronghold in what had been farm country near 7th and South. There were race riots here in 1918, touched off when a black woman moved in; thousands battled in the streets. By the 1920s, according to a resident quoted in Murray Dubin’s South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories, and the Melrose Diner, from Lombard Street to Washington Avenue between Broad and 20th was “solid black.” Still, racial strife bubbled up regularly. In 1997, then-mayor Ed Rendell had to negotiate a compromise with Louis Farrakhan to ward off a planned protest.
Today, Point Breeze is ground zero for Philly gentrification. The median housing price in the most gentrified section rose from $29,000 in 2000 to $234,000 in 2016, while the population of black residents changed from 80 percent to 46 percent. Bryant Simon, who wrote a book about Starbucks, says you can trace the spread of gentrification in coffee shops. He mentions developer Ori Feibush, who fueled Point Breeze’s gilding by opening OCF Coffee House at 20th and Federal “as a way of planting a flag. He was smart about that.”
Neighbors playing at 2nd and Porter. Photograph by Michelle Gustafson
For many residents of western South Philly, Feibush, who’s been building new townhouses everywhere, has become the face of black displacement. In 2015, he ran against incumbent 2nd District Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson in a bitter primary fight that stirred race into the already boiling pot of tax assessments and abatements and property values. Johnson won. In May, he introduced a bill that would ban from Grays Ferry and Point Breeze the balconies and bay windows featured on many newly constructed rowhomes — a pointed up-yours to Feibush and gentrification. The resentment is understandable.
Racism has a long history throughout South Philadelphia. “It would have helped if Frank Rizzo didn’t tolerate white resistance, or if there had been no redlining,” Simon says. Old photos of South Philly High show integrated sports teams as far back as 1918, and black and white cross-country runners in the ’50s with their arms draped around each other. But as recently as 2009, black students were beating up Asian immigrants. Following a boycott, a new principal, and a Justice Department investigation, matters have improved.
In fact, says Penn’s Vitiello, you could make the case that since the 1970s, South Philadelphia has been the city’s most successful neighborhood in terms of immigration: “A wide variety of refugees has found it comfortable and livable. There’s a wide variety of ethnic groceries, goods and services. The housing stock is still affordable. There are still plenty of absentee landlords who see new immigrants as an important source of income.” And many older residents, he says, “welcome newcomers in a very humane way. They appreciate that their neighbors are here just trying to raise their kids and provide for themselves.” It was former mayor John Street, he points out, who first established sanctuary protections in Philadelphia back in 2001, along with Irish-born police commissioner John Timoney.
“Change related to new immigrants is nothing new in South Philly,” Bryant Simon says. “It’s never been without tensions. Change is kind of perpetual there.”
To some extent, Vitiello says, politicians here have embraced immigrants because they know that without them, the city would be shrinking, not growing. He puts Michael Nutter in this economically motivated camp. But Jim Kenney, whose parents came to the U.S. from Ireland — and who grew up five blocks from my mom’s house, at 3rd and Snyder — “has consistently been more about treating people as humans, as neighbors,” he says.
At the same time, South Philadelphians, Bryant Simon points out, have always shown “a commitment to maintaining their turf.” Historically, this is the land of mobsters and payola, not touchy-feely empathy. “We make fun of yoga studios and deck bars serving IPAs,” Simon says, “and the identity that goes along with certain cultural practices.” But alpaca yoga isn’t South Philly’s big problem now: “The real tensions are over real estate values.”
On the positive side, he notes, “Change related to new immigrants is nothing new in South Philly. It was always a place of immigrants. It’s never been without tensions. Change is kind of perpetual there.”
I used to live in South Philly. In 1988, Doug and I bought a little rowhouse near 20th and Snyder for $35,000. We were ready to have kids and wanted some stability. We were an odd fit for the neighborhood back then. There was nobody our age on our block; old people lived there, and their kids drove in from Jersey for Sunday dinner. One entire wall of our bathroom was mirrored; it became our daughter’s favorite part of the house. Once, when I was taking the bus into Center City with Marcy when she was two, a nun asked what parish we belonged to. “We don’t go to church,” I told her. “Surely you’ve had her baptized,” she said. I shook my head. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “Do you want your daughter to go to Hell?”
Most people, though, were nice to us. Johnny from the auto shop across the street would invite us in for barbecued deer during fall hunting season. In winter, we pushed the kids in strollers beneath rainbows of Christmas lights. In summer, there were walks to the water-ice stand and cooling showers from fire-hydrant sprinklers. The mobster’s mom down the block wouldn’t let her grandson come to Marcy’s birthday party, but she did show up afterward with excuses and a gift.
After six years, we got tired of chasing guys with guns off our stoop, of worrying that the kids would get hit by cars, of the endless litter and the fight to find parking. I longed for a real garden, not a couple of barrel planters. We escaped to the suburbs, just in time for Marcy to start school. We sold the house for less than we’d paid for it, to two Cambodian brothers. We always have been terrible at real estate.
Today, the house we dumped for $32,500 is worth an estimated $195,954. I go back to see it, for old time’s sake. The neighborhood is still dotted with bodegas and pharmacies and Chinese takeout joints, but there’s a new coffee shop that delivers through Grubhub. Our place looks tidy and kempt; there are a host of potted plants beside the front door, which is painted deep blue. The house numbers are a bougie font. The young woman who lives there now walks dogs for a living. We exchange emails, and I ask if the bathroom still has that mirrored wall. She LOLs. It does.
In nearby Girard Park, I pick my way through downed tree branches from a recent storm to view a plaque honoring Kenyatta Johnson for nabbing $600,000 in improvements to its drainage, benches and walkways. Within eyeshot of the house where a pipe bomb blew up Phil “Chicken Man” Testa in 1981, I join a woman sitting on a park bench with a little girl in a stroller. I smile and tell her my daughter learned to walk right in this park. She smiles back. “I’m the nanny,” she says.
A nanny. In Girard Park. It’s the beginning of the end.
Not so fast, says Vitiello. “South Philly is pretty big,” he points out, “and gentrification moves in waves. There are some indicators that suggest South Philly will keep growing, and others that suggest its growth will be slow and halting.” That means South Philly’s seemingly impossible balance of old and new, rich and poor, black and white and everything else, could endure. Large tracts here, Vitiello insists, should remain affordable for a long time to come.
Maybe so. All I know is, there’s new three-story housing going up across 20th Street from our old place, no doubt with garages and roof decks.
Oh my God. It’s just like Morris Street.
Published as “True South” in the July 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
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Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/07/06/changing-south-philly/
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queen-of-deans-booty · 7 years ago
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Bloody Mary- Part 2
Pairing: Eventual Dean x Reader
Word Count: 1,726
Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, angst, language, minor character death, blood, you know the usual
Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Please, if you want to be tagged for this series, let me know and I’ll add you! If you want to be tagged for my other fics, I’ll add you! I want to hear what you guys think about this.
Feedback is always appreciated
Tags at the bottom
Part One
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Your name: submit What is this?
It didn’t take much time to get over there and you were glad they were having an open house for the memorial. That made things a lot easier. Once inside, you bit your lip, immediately feeling out of place. Everyone was wearing nice, black clothes and you plus the Winchesters, weren’t.
“Feel like we’re underdressed.” Dean said from behind you.
“That’s because we are but let’s just find the daughter.” You looked to see the dead man’s picture on the table when you first walked in but didn’t pay too much attention to it. You didn’t know which one was her so you tapped on an older gentleman’s shoulder and gave him a smile.
“Hi, I’m looking for Donna Shoemaker. Could you please point her out for me?” You smiled and he nodded, taking you and the boys outside to the backyard. He lifted his finger and pointed to a group of girls in the corner, sitting on some chairs.
“Thank you.” You smiled and walked towards her. The one to your back, a blonde, looked up and when she saw the Winchesters, her mouth popped open in shock. You had to resist an eyeroll at her childish behavior. Yeah, they are very attractive. You move on and let it go.
“You must be Donna.” You smiled politely. She was a short girl, from what you could tell, with dark, short hair. She was sitting next to another blonde who was holding her hand in a comforting way.
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“Hi, we’re really sorry.” Sam said with sorrow laced in his tone.
“Thank you.” Donna nodded.
“I’m Sam, this is Dean and that’s Y/N. We worked with your dad.” You saw Donna look at her blonde friend that was sitting next to her with a confused look.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I mean, with everything happening, a stroke is unexpected.” Dean said.
“I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now.” Her blonde friend said with an attitude. You looked over at a much younger girl who you assumed to be Donna’s little sister but once you made eye contact, she looked away.
“It's okay, I'm okay.” Donna nodded. She was trying to be strong.
“Were there any symptoms? Dizziness? Migraines?” Sam wondered.
“No.” Donna shrugged. The youngest girl turned around and scolded her bigger sister.
“That’s because it wasn’t a stroke.”
“Lily, don’t say that.” Donna looked at her sister.
“What?” You looked at Donna.
“I’m sorry, she’s just upset.” You nodded but you thought something else was going on.
“No, it happened because of me.” Lily said.
“Sweetie, it didn’t.” Donna tried to comfort her sister. It was natural to think you were the cause of a loved one’d death. You know you certainly blamed yourself for a while because your mom died.
“Lily,” You said softly, getting down to her eye level. “Why would you say something like that?” You were the one that always tried to get a person who was hurting to talk because between you and the boys, you were the more empathic one. Not that Dean or Sam was, but you were the more likely option.
“Right before he died, I said it.” Lily said in a small voice.
“You said what?”
“Bloody Mary, three times in the bathroom mirror,” She sighed. “She took his eyes because that is what she does.”
“That’s not why dad died. This isn’t your fault.” Donna spoke up.
“I think your sister's right, Lily. There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn't say it, did he?” Dean asked.
“No, I don’t think so.” You looked at Lily before getting up. You knew she thought otherwise and you knew something was going on. Steven Shoemaker didn’t die an ordinary death.
“Thank you for your time and I’m sorry we disturbed you.” You smiled at Donna and moved past the boys, glancing at the girl who could not stop staring at them. When you were away from them, you rolled your eyes. Slut. You thought any girl who oogled at Dean was a slut. You heard heavy footsteps follow you and you walked inside the house.
“Bloody Mary? You’ve got to be kidding me. That was a scare tactic used when I was a kid.” You looked at Dean and Sam. You decided to look upstairs where the dad was found so when no one was looking, you slipped up the steps stealthy.
You walked up the steps and looked at the mirrors that were hanging on the wall.
“It does seem a bit weird but, Y/N, come on, this is our lives we’re taking about. Weird happens all the time.” Dean stated. You saw a door with blood stains on the carpet right outside and you knew it was the bathroom. You pushed open the door and saw some dried blood was still on the floor.
“The Bloody Mary legend... Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?” Sam asked. It was natural to call John your dad as well because that is what he felt like.
“Not that I know of.” Dean shrugged. Dean turned on the light and advanced inside, you staying outside. You were terrified of this woman all your childhood. It was pure luck on your part that you would get a case involving her. Sam stooped down to the ground and touched the dried blood, wiping it off when he looked at it.
“I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it.” Sam got up and walked inside. Sam said her name twice, he better not say it again. You were scared now about this case but wouldn’t let it show.
“Yeah, well, maybe everywhere it's just a story, but here it's actually happening.” You said from the door.
“The place where the legend began?” Sam looked at you then back at his brother. Dean shrugged and opened the medicine cabinet, letting the mirror face Sam.
“But according to the legend, the person who says,” he looked at the mirror to see himself and he rolled his eyes, shutting the mirror so it wouldn’t face him. “The person who says you know what gets it. But here…”
“Shoemaker gets it instead.” Dean finished for him.
“Right,” You said softly. “Never heard anything like that before. Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the daughter's right. The way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out.”
“It’s worth checking into.” Sam sighed. You three exited the bathroom but come face to face with Donna’s friend from downstairs. At least she wasn’t the friend who stared too much.
“What are you doing up here?” She scolded you.
“We had to go to the bathroom.” You hung your head slightly. It was weird for three grown ass adults to say that, especially when two of them were brothers and one of them was a girl.
“Who are you?” You knew she suspected you.
“Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad.” Dean said calmly.
“He was a day trader or something; he worked by himself.” She crossed her arms.
“No, I know, I meant,” Dean was cut off.
“And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So, you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming.” You narrowed your eyes at her threat.
“All right, all right. We think something happened to Donna's dad.” Sam sighed, giving in. You put your hand to the bridge of your nose but didn’t say a word. One rule of hunting: never get people involved.
“Yeah, a stroke.” She shrugged.
“That's not a sign of a typical stroke. We think it might be something else.” Sam argued.
“Like what?” She wondered.
“Like none of your damn business.” That is what you would like to have said but you kept your mouth shut.
“Honestly? We don't know yet. But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth.” Dean said.
“So, if you're going to scream, go right ahead.” You said, looking at her.
“Who are you, cops?” She stared at you. That is when a lightbulb went off.
“Yeah, something like that,” You smiled softly, answering for the boys. “I’ll tell you what, take my number and if anything new pops up, please, give me a call.” You took out a pen and paper and scribbled your name and number down, handing it to her. You looked at the boys and nodded to them, walking away from the girl and down the stairs. You quickly got out of the house.
“We should hit the library and look into you know who.” Sam said when he reached the Impala. You nodded, agreeing with him and getting inside. Once all three of you were seated, Dean took off and went to the library that Sam saw when they were on their way to Donna’s house.
“Alright, say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's going to be some sort of proof—Like a local woman who died nasty.” Dean said, parking the car. He got out as did you and Sam, following him into the library.
“Wow,” you said shocked.
“What?” Dean and Sam both looked back at you.
“Dean Winchester is in a library.” You smirked and giggled teasing him.
“Shut up.” He grumbled, walking further inside.
“So, this isn’t going to be tough. I mean, there are more than 50 versions of who she really was. Some say she’s a witch, maybe a mutilated bride, but there is a lot more.” Sam said.
“Alright, so what are we supposed to be looking for?” Dean asked.
“Every versions got a few things in common. It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of a mirror. So, we've gotta search local newspapers and public records as far back as they go. See if we can find a match.” You stated, walking past them and to one of the computers.
“That sounds annoying.” Dean complained.
“No, it won’t be so bad, as long as we…” He sighed when you cursed. You saw all the computers with signs on them saying that they were all out of order. “I take it back, this will be very annoying.”
Part Three
Masterlist // Series Rewrite Masterlist // Buy me a Coffee?
Series Rewrite tags:
@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @roxalya19 @quixoticcat
Forever tags:
@love-like-lies @maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith @mogaruke @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes
Dean tags:
@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester​ @winchesterandpie​
Other tags:
@jensen-jarpad @notnaturalanahi @deathtonormalcy56 @27bmm
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thisdaynews · 5 years ago
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Women's World Cup: Khadija Shaw's story of tragedy, tenacity & triumph
New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/womens-world-cup-khadija-shaws-story-of-tragedy-tenacity-triumph/
Women's World Cup: Khadija Shaw's story of tragedy, tenacity & triumph
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Shaw was the global top scorer in World Cup qualifying with 19 goals
When Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw graduated with a communications degree from the University of Tennessee in May, it wasn’t hard to spot her.
As she collected her diploma, the Jamaica forward burst into her trademark “infectious” smile and repeated three simple words: “I did well. I did well.”
For anyone already acquainted with Shaw’s story, it was an understatement as huge as her grin.
The 22-year-old, nicknamed ‘Bunny’ because of a fondness for carrots at an early age, had completed her degree while simultaneously helping Jamaica reach their first World Cup.
She did so after a young life touched by tragedy in her native country, where she lost three brothers and a nephew to gang violence.
She also had to contend with her mother’s preconceptions about whether she should play football at all.
“It has taken a lot of sacrifice and sleepless nights, but you just have to take it step-by-step, otherwise things will crumble,” Shaw says.
“Sometimes you have things replaying in your mind, and you start thinking: ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore, I don’t know if I want to do this anymore’.
“But if I stopped, would they be happy? If they were alive would they want me to stop? Are you going to let that define you as a person?”
Shaw grew up as the youngest of 13 brothers and sisters in Spanish Town, 13 miles west of Jamaica’s capital Kingston, on the banks of the Rio Cobre.
It is the birthplace of singer Grace Jones and sprinter Yohan Blake, who, like Shaw, attended St Jago High School, a stone’s throw from the river that dissects the town.
Jamaican journalist Kayon Raynor calls it a “hard” place where two rival gangs are often responsible for the violence that has blossomed there. Recently, he says, gunmen shot at local police on a Sunday morning in broad daylight.
In 2018, 1,287 people were murdered in Jamaica, which has a population of about 2.9m. The UK’s Foreign Office states “gang violence and shootings are common, although usually confined to inner-city neighbourhoods”.
“Anywhere in the world you have places like this,” says Raynor. “But when you get out of Spanish Town, whether it’s via sport or business, it’s a good thing. Shaw has demonstrated that.”
Shaw plays down Jamaica’s violence but, in all, she lost four brothers. A fourth died in a car accident, while a second nephew was electrocuted on a football pitch.
The hardest thing, for her, was not being able to say goodbye. The deaths of her nephews came while she was studying and playing football in Florida and, understandably, she wanted to quit and go back home.
“Soccer is a way for me to forget a lot of things,” she says.
“It was a big risk leaving home and leaving my family, but sometimes you have to take chances and see how far it leads you. In the environment I was in, I knew I had to do something to help myself and my family.
“I lost four brothers and two nephews, and it was just… tough, especially at a young age seeing all this stuff happening around you. Sometimes you have to pull yourself together and my family played a big part in that. We have been through it all.
“Jamaica is not the same as a lot of places in the world but violence is everywhere, so you just have to try and make what’s best for you. That’s what helped us get through it. You have a lot of negative thoughts but if you let them overthrow the positives, I would have stopped a long time ago.”
Shaw recently signed to join French club Bordeaux
That ability to deal with “struggles” and move on has already led to great success in football and academia, despite humble beginnings.
Born to father George, a shoemaker, and mother Monica, a chicken farmer, a year before the Jamaican men’s team qualified for their first World Cup in 1998, as a child Shaw would help out with her dad’s business during the summer holidays.
She was also keen to play football with her older brothers. Her mother stopped her because she thought the sport was too rough.
But once her brother Kentardo began to teach her, aged 10, it wasn’t long before her rare combination of speed, power and skill began to be noticed and when the Jamaican federation came calling, her mother soon changed her mind.
It was also around this time that Kentardo gave her the ‘Bunny’ nickname. It stuck.
“I enjoyed my mum’s carrot juice and carrots and I had two big teeth, so my brother would always say: ‘You eat them like a bunny rabbit’. He started calling me that, and initially, I didn’t like it. Everybody laughed at me, and I would cry and get mad. But then I thought, you know what, I’m going to embrace it.”
Aged 14, ‘Bunny’ was playing for the Jamaican under-15, under-17 and under-20 teams. While representing her country during a game in Florida, she was spotted. That led to scholarships at Navarro College in Texas and Eastern Florida State College before she was alerted to the University of Tennessee.
The soccer coach at Tennessee, Brian Pensky, got a text from a friend saying he should go and watch Shaw play. When he did, it was a “slam-dunk moment”.
“You could tell she was unique straight away,” he says.
“She’s 5’11”, strong, quick, technical and smart – in many ways the complete package. Tall women in soccer tend to be target players or centre-backs but her ability to change direction and her passing ability and vision made me think she was different.”
Pensky wasted little time in signing Shaw up, converting her from a midfielder to a striker. The move paid off massively – both for his team and the Reggae Girlz.
The University of Tennessee reached the NCAA quarter-finals for the first time, and Shaw was the team’s top scorer in both 2017 and 2018.
For Jamaica, she scored 19 goals in 12 games en route to France, making her the tournament’s leading scorer in qualification.
Shaw was “incredibly popular” on campus, Pensky says. He talks fondly of her “infectious” smile and how he would get texts from fellow athletic coaches and directors after Shaw had paid them a visit.
“They’d be telling me that Bunny had just left their offices and their faces were hurting because they’d been laughing so much,” he says. “Her character and wit are sensational. She’s a leader but she’s incredibly humble.”
Pensky got an immediate insight into the tragedy in her personal life the day she arrived at the University of Tennessee as a shy student in the autumn of 2017.
“When I met her, she told me that her cousin had been shot, a drive-by shooting, that morning. Thankfully, he survived. What she’s been through is well beyond anything I’ve seen, so really during the time she has been with us, I’ve just tried to lend an ear when she wants to talk.
“There are no kids in her team or probably in the whole university who have suffered the repeated tragedies she has been through. To manage that all herself speaks to another level of maturity and how goal-driven she is. She’s just proud.”
Having scored twice against Scotland in Jamaica’s final pre-tournament friendly, a 3-2 defeat last month, Shaw now stands on the verge of making an even bigger name for herself at the World Cup.
In France this summer, Jamaica face Brazil, Italy and Australia in their opening group games – starting with Brazil on Sunday (14:30 BST). It will be a special occasion for a player who counts Ronaldinho and Marta as her footballing heroes.
Shaw has already signed a contract to join French team Bordeaux next season, and has been dreaming of playing on the biggest stage ever since Jamaica qualified.
The fact Jamaica have reached their first World Cup is a massive story in itself. In 2008 and 2016, the federation disbanded the Reggae Girlz because of a lack of funding. Bob Marley’s daughter Cedella helped raised sponsorship to get them back on track.
“When Jamaica made it to France in October, I told Khadija that she could wake up every day for the next eight months and tell herself she’ll be at the World Cup. That’s how she’s carried herself since then,” Pensky says.
“There are no words to express her excitement about competing there. I can’t wait to see what she becomes five years from now. The sky is the limit and she can become something special.”
Although Shaw was a leading light in qualifying, she credits the “togetherness” the Reggae Girlz have shown in matching the men’s team, who also travelled to France for their first World Cup 21 years ago.
“A World Cup is a big stage but we can’t let that overthrow what we have done for ourselves,” she says. “This is a game-by-game team.
“We needed to qualify for the World Cup to open the eyes of a lot of people to see that we can play and compete. They think that women’s football is just kicking a ball around, but it’s much more than that. Playing in France will have a massive impact.”
Despite her story of overcoming poverty and tragedy, leaving home to earn her family’s first degree and helping Jamaica reach their first World Cup, she doesn’t regard herself as a role model, even if she has “hero” status back home, according to Pensky.
“I don’t focus on stuff like that,” she says. “I focus on being as professional as I can, because I’m in an environment where people are looking towards me. I try not to let certain achievements overthrow who I am. I’m not going to let that define who I really am.”
Looking back can be difficult. Shaw’s focus is the future, but she understands why her story needs to be told.
“It’s important because other people might be going through the same thing that I did,” she says. “Some of them might not be brave enough to talk, so for me to talk on behalf of them and talk about similar things they’ve been through is good.
“There are other times when I want to bypass that question but I say hey, if I’m inspiring others when I’ve been through all this and they see me laugh and being successful, then that’s all I need.
“I want to make my friends, my family, the people who know me and my country proud.”
On that front, she has already done better than well.
Fifa Women’s World Cup Host nation:FranceDates:7 June – 7 July 2019 Coverage:Live across BBC TV and Red Button, Radio 5 Live & Sports Extra and the BBC Sport website & App
Your guide to the Women’s World Cup
Full schedule and BBC coverage
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