Darin Strauss on This American Life

     Darin Strauss's story is very tough for someone who hasn't been put in that situation to try to understand. If I were put in Darin's shoes, I probably wouldn't be able to live, with myself and I would be just as distraught as he was. He felt this immense amount of guilt for hitting Celine Zilke, even though there was "no way he could have avoided the accident". The guilt stayed with him through a large chunk of his life, and it affected the way he lived. He then felt that he had to live for two people after what Mrs. Zilke told him, but all of us know that sort of thing is tough to do. I felt that the background music took away some of the power and effectiveness of the story; it would have been better if it had been left out.

     It's awful how Mr. and Mrs. Zilke told Darin that no matter what they would never blame him and then less than a year later sued Darin for 1.5 million dollars. I understand that the Zilkes were hurting really badly but they made a promise to Darin, and they broke that promise with the lawsuit. Mrs. Zilke even thought that Celine's diary entry for that day was odd because Celine had written, "Today I realized I am going to die." This was her goodbye note, and it shows that she was going to commit suicide in some way. That way just happened to be riding her bike into Darin's car.

Once More to the Lake by E.B. White

           I personally made a connection to the story Once More to the Lake by E.B. White because my father used to take my brother and me every summer on a fishing trip to a lake that sounds very similar to the one E.B. White describes. We would camp and fish for a whole week and do everything E.B. White wrote about in the story. This gave me the ultimate feeling of summer just as it did for E.B. White. Those were some of the best memories with my father and brother, and I will cherish them forever.

           I really liked how the author conveys the connection of the lake to his childhood and now to his adulthood. Going back to the lake, the author can revisit his childhood, the only reminder that he is an adult being the sound of the outboard motors. E.B. White feels awkward because he sees the lake and the surrounding areas through his boyhood eyes even though he is now a man. It's true that we can go back to places we've been to as children and somehow return to that childish state and view the area the way we did when we were young. That's the way I feel whenever I walk into a place like Chuck E. Cheese's.