Intended Story Market

My story is one about a young man watching his best friend die. This is not an ordinary experience. In my interview, I asked what it was like living the experience. While it was very sad, it also shaped the young man who experienced it. He will never forget the event as long as he lives. He will never forget his friend either until the day he dies.
A lot of people never got to hear exactly what happened the day Josias died. This is a chance for all his friends to hear firsthand how it happened from the kid swimming in the water with him. All his friends will want to hear/ read this story. Specifically his rugby friends and his high school friends who know everyone involved in the tragedy. The high school Josias went to will want to see this story and I am hoping that it will bring about a memorial in his honor at our high school. I think that his family and the college he went to might also want to hear this story. With the rugby season in full swing, this is a chance for teams to remember a teammate that is not with them this season. I think that this makes it a good time for writing the story.

Profile update

I met with my profile on Wednesday and did the first interview with him. The interview went well. He seemed okay with talking about losing his friend, although you could tell it definitely had a major impact on his life. I got a lot of good quotes, good information and a good direction of where I am going to take this story. I am just not sure how much to make about my profile and how much to put about the person he watched drown. I still need more details of my profile as well. I plan on attending a rugby practice where he will be coaching over Easter Break. I need sources but I feel confident I will be able to get those sources at the practice. The interview went well, but I have thought of some more questions to ask as a followup interview.

Fresh Air: Kelly Kennedy

The interview I chose was of Kelly Kennedy, a reported who was embedded with the U.S. Army while they went through some of their toughest times during the Iraq War. This reported had to tell the story of watching guys see their best friends get blown up, shot, and killed. They witnessed their friends committ sucide. They had to identify their friends when they died. The reporter leading the interview asks about specific events Kennedy knew about or witnessed, then asked about what she knew about it, and how she felt about it.
To set up her questions, she starts off by stating facts. One particular question she says something to the effect of, the one medic was shot, how did he react, what did you see, how did the men react, what was the outcome, etc. She sets up by stating facts, then she wants to know the who, what, when, where, why, how of the story. She does this by having done some research. She must have either read some of Kennedy’s book, or read about the specific company of men that Kennedy embedded with. She knows that Kennedy has a military background and has witnessed a lot of terrible things in Iraq herself.
The reporter asks Kennedy to “tell us about him,” referring to specific men. She asks Kennedy to “describe the emotions you went through.” This interview was about a reporter talking to people who saw their friends die. This was good to listen to before I conduct the interview with my profile because I see how the reporter crafts her questions in order to get at the emotions Kennedy felt and saw. My profile basically watched his friend die. I need to craft my questions to not be so blunt, but ask him to talk about it and make him feel comfortable talking about the incident, something a lot of the men in combat were not.

Firsthand witness to death

The most interesting aspect to my profile is that he a witness to death. He was only 18 or 19 years old at the time and not only witnessed someone dying, he witnessed his best friend get washed away and dragged out to sea to his death. These two young men went to school together, played on the same sports team together and vacationed together. Their last vacation however, was one that will haunt my profile for the rest of his life.
I do not know many people my age who have witnessed someone they know die. It is even sadder that this young man watched his best friend die, someone as young as himself. This tragedy was one that could have been avoided had the two young men went swimming in a protected beach, but now my profile must live with being the last person to see this man before he died.

Capote: Relentless

Truman Capote was a strange character as depicted by the movie. The thing that stuck out to me was the fact that he was relentless in trying to get the details of the story. The story consumed weeks and months at a time of life, taking years to tell the tell. He also didn’t stop until he knew he could tell a good story. He wasn’t satisfied with what he had at first with the two criminals, so he kept coming back and interviewing them. He followed them from arrest until their execution. It was mentioned in class that he wanted to “bring these two murderers back to humanity.” He did this by showing that they were sorry for what they did, and that they did not go into the house intending to kill. The story also showed the brutish side of man, who is capable of unspeakable things. He saw the whole story and that helped him depict them in his book. These things are important because in class we have stressed the points of telling a good story, getting the whole story and the bigger picture, and picking up on the little details add to the story.

f’REAL They’re Popular on Campus

If you are dying for a cold one while on campus, head over to the Campion C-store. With the freezer set at -20 degrees Fahrenheit, this refresher is sure to be as cold as the Rockies.

“That’s what most of the kids who come in here buy,” said Charlotte Riddell, who works the C-store on weekends. Riddell had to reset the machine’s alarm Saturday night because the freezer was empty, having almost sold out.

Between the Burt’s Bees display and festive gift wrap rack lies the popular newcomer to the Campion C-store. The blinking blue and green lights of the f’REAL milkshake machine have attracted the likes of many on campus. With flavors such as Strawberry, Caramel Bliss, Cookies n’ Cream, Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry Banana, Cookie Dough, and Frozen Cappuccino, it is easy to see why the machine has become so popular.

“That’s what students wanted, so I brought it to Aramark and pushed to get it. We looked into the f’REAL milkshakes after seeing them at the local Wawa’s,” said Brendan Bryant ’12, Chair for the Dining Services Committee on the University Student Senate, who has weekly meetings with Aramark.

The full milkshake experience includes a person first choosing a flavor. They then insert their milkshake into the mixing machine. They select from either the extra, regular, or less thick setting. The machine takes the milkshake up into the machine, mixes it, and brings it back down, ready to be enjoyed.

At $2.99, these milkshakes are fifty cents more expensive than those at Wawa, but people will pay for convenience, especially when the mercury rises.

“They probably sell over a hundred a day in the hot months,” said Bryant, whose favorite part of the milkshake buying experience is that he gets to select the thickness of his shake.

St. Joe’s is not alone in adding the f’REAL milkshakes to campus. According to the f’REAL website, Drexel, Villanova, Haverford College, Rosemont College, Temple, and Rowan all have the milkshakes on campus.

“I stop in and grab one after I take a big test and I think I did well. I grab one to treat myself,” said Gabe Montemuro ’12, whose favorite flavor is Cookies n’ Cream.

“Hands on a Hardbody”

I would start this story off with a lead similar to something like, “Benny Perkins isn’t in the space program, but he has the right stuff.”
Quote that follows lead:
“Its a contest of stamina, but its a contest of who can maintain their sanity the longest.”

Adds details about the contest aspect of it. I feel like it would be easiest to tell about what a competitor this guy is.

A really nice quote in the middle: “I told him, You standin’ next to the devil, and you’re ridin’ the road to hell. I’ll stand here till i die. You may as well quit now.”

He talks trash to the guys around him, he talks about how exhilarating it was when he won and how arrogant he became after he did win. He even admitted he used to sit on his porch and stare at his truck for hours at a time. He ego was almost hard to deal with at times.
I would also include the part about the piano bar to show just how tough it is to stay focused in the contest. My ending would be to have the quote, “I’ll drive it ’til the wheels fall off, then ill glue em back on and drive it some more…’til it wont drive anymore, thats when ill set it up, set it up out on the farm. Im not gonna scrap it. Im not going to haul it off to a junk yard, it don’t deserve that.”

Just goes to show how much he has come to love the truck, and how it has affected him.

Ryan Gregory

My profile is a 20 year old student at the University of Scranton named Ryan Gregory. He is from the Philadelphia area. He went to high school at St. Joseph’s Prep. There he met his best friend Josias Sterling, and they both played on the Rugby team together. This past summer, they took a trip to the shore for a rugby tournament. It was supposed to be a fun trip, until tragedy struck. The two friends were swimming in the ocean when a rip tide suddenly took Josias out to sea. Ryan was lucky himself to make it back to shore, but has had to deal with losing his best friend. It was days before his body was recovered. I will talk to Ryan about what it was like being friends with Josias, what it was like being with him the day he died and losing him. I will ask him about his rugby tournament that was also established in Josias’ honor.

Rick Bragg

The Rick Bragg videos were full of interesting stories. His southern drawl added to the flavor of his stories that were of the South. All the stories he told, were in such great detail. The detail is what made the stories. Humor also added to his speech which lightened up the crowd and kept me watching. Talking about his grandparents in such detail, he could judge his grandmother’s mood by the way she rocked in her chair against the wood floor. His grandfather who beat up cops and people that gave his kids trouble. He had hands quick enough to catch squirrels, these were the things that I remembered.

The story of his dad running over his tricycle, his mom hiding it in the closet and it staying there until the day his family moved. He had to dig to get stories of his father. He had to pull it out of his brother and his mom to get any story about his dad. He finally found out his dad had spent a lot of time in prison. The story of his dad writing the letters of “I love you” under the stamps. Bragg also mentioned how he tells his students to write in color, to show not tell. This was the way he explained his dad. He made him seem like a model, but then the way he took the burnt oil from the gas station to fill up his tank for free.

The details added to the story, but so did the quotes Bragg used. The “color” was how he described his dad’s face that was pretty but then he hit it on his steering wheel and got scraped up in fights. He smoked Pallmalls and had yellow handled knife on his left hip so he could get at it quick. These are little details that add so much to the story.

Story Idea

My idea is to interview the owner of a hookah bar. It is quickly becoming a popular thing for many young people to take part in. There is a newly opened hookah bar right down the street from Villanova. They are taking advantage of their location among several local schools.