Community Day

Jeff Rider

Blog Post Number 2

October 11, 2017

            This past fall I participated in one of the many York Road community days where many students join together in order to help make our community a better place. Throughout the day, I participated in many different types of activities including cleaning an urban forest, cleaning the sidewalks, and picking up garbage. I spent most of my time in the urban forest, which was very different than any forest, I had seen before. Back in my hometown, the woods behind my house went back for a mile where my friends and I would play many different games growing up. The urban forest on York road was very small and you could always see outside the forest regardless of where you were inside it.  The young children on York road only have this one forest to experience and it was our job to clean it up. After this was done, it was very satisfying to look back at the work we had done.

            In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Fortunato is brutally murdered by Montresor for no true reason. Montresor claims that Fortunato had insulted him previously and that he was going to punish him with impunity. Montresor baited Fortunato to follow him underground to the crypts where his ancestors were all buried. He then made sure Fortunato was heavily intoxicated and chained him up with the ultimate goal of burying him alive. This punishment, without a true reason is similar to the situation on York Road. These children are deprived of having the ability to play games in woods or even in their own backyards. This punishment is not the fault of the young kids however they are denied the many experiences that my friends and I had during our childhood.

            Furthermore, in Theodore Roethke “My Papa’s Waltz,” a young boy is dancing with his father in the kitchen. The two are banging around the kitchen and pans are sliding around. This father son bonding experience is one that we hoped would occur when we cleaned the Urban Forest. Throughout our cleaning, we made sure that there were many places to sit down for parents and many places to run around for the young kids.

            Finally, in Mitsuye Yamada “Cincinnati,” a young Japanese woman is in a new city for the first time and she is feeling very alone. However when she is embarrassed and accidentally bumps into some books, she says that everyone now knows who she is. This is similar to the York Road day because going in, I didn’t know anyone however when I left, our group was a little close and we are still friends today. Although the circumstances are very different, on the surface level, it was similar.