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#i drew this a little while ago but DID YOU SEE THE INTERVIEW WHERE MELISSA DRANK HER DRINK LIKE THAT (ALEX) I WAS LIKE AHHH
sheltereredturtle · 3 years
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Juicebox Heroes~
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genetictumble · 7 years
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A Very Creative Girl
I’d read this story already. You know the super scary one with the humanoid thing that convinces you it’s friendly with ease only to be discovered as the exact opposite. Our class had been assigned to reading this story and analyzing it, and by analyzing I meant studying how descriptive words are used. Mostly for a refresher, I read the story a second time.
No matter how many times I read a story, it engulfs me entirely. The moment I finish the first sentence, everything plays out before me and the world around me disappears. This is where is starts sounding cliché, right there, with the whole becoming a part of the story. I realized that years ago when I tried to explain that I actually become part of the story. Everyone I spoke to told me that it was normal, I thought that we were seeing eye to eye and that everyone did this. I cannot emphasize enough how wrong I was. In my own defense I was very young when I had all of these talks. To my dismay, as a teenager saying these things to people I either sound like I just came from woodstock or everyone thinks I am a very creative girl.
I hate describing things in my stories now. Whenever I review them everything starts to feel hypnagogic. Reading my own stories is worse than déjá vu on an acid trip, not that I know what one is like.
As soon as I laid eyes on the story everything seemed to melt away. My body could not physically move but my mind did all of that for me, so we took a look around. This story started in a empty street, in which the sun was setting, almost perfectly aligned with one end of the road that disappeared into what had been described as a horizon. A man strolled down the street. He had on an ironed, navy blue suit with a black shirt underneath. He called it his interview suit and was confident in every step with a new title to his name. He was…
A woman caught his eye across the street walking more quickly. The woman’s thick brown curls bounced like feathers in a basket with every step she took. The steps drew no sound from her red wedged heels. Her hips, oh those woman’s hips, swayed only a little as she moved. He shook his head. I wanted to shake mine as well. Get it together Matthias.
Matthias continued to watch the woman from his side of the road. She was beyond gorgeous. This woman seemed to move with the most perfect precision so that her movement flowed more smoothly than the wind. Matthias, being the confident man he was today, decided he would take a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? Even if the woman were to flat out reject him, he had still gotten a very nice job that would win him a woman just as beautiful. Matthias adjusted the black tie around his neck like any man would before approaching a beautiful woman, and began to cross the street.
“Excuse me, miss!” he said with a full voice. The woman stopped to look back at him as he-
The knock on my door caused my entire vision to shatter into tiny glass pieces. I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears to close out the shriek that always followed a disruption. My sister never spoke when it was time for dinner. She only knocked three times, our little code. I put away the story and begin to reorient myself.
This is my room. The queen sized bed with lime green bedding is my current sitting place. The walls around me are only slightly darker than maroon. The walls are not very close and it is dark outside. I can tell through my window across the room that forest green curtains parted to display the stars outside. This is the real world and it is time for dinner with my family.
My feet find the hardwood floor and begin their march to the bedroom door. Upon my unmotivated request, my parents replaced the original door of the room with one of mahogany. I am currently trying to find the reason behind such a desire, but I followed it.
As I make my way to the stairway I looked at the years of family pictures on the wall.
~~~
Leah is my best friend. She is my creative writing teacher but she is also very kind and understanding. I’m spending my lunch time with her, she’ll let me read a paper from another student if she thinks it is really good. Most of the stories aren’t that great, when you can see it all around you it is easy to see many flaws.
I look up to Leah after finishing another story. This one was almost as if a game had glitches, staticky and unclear. As I watch her read I begin to wonder what goes through her mind when she reads all of these papers. How does someone who can’t read like me see a story this bad as good?
I study her face as my mind wanders, the way her eyes narrow occasionally and how her right hand picks at her earlobe. I can only guess that she has seen a severe mistake when he forehead wrinkles and her eyebrows come together
~~~
There he is. I’d followed him all day waiting for him to check out that book I had recommended. Mason chose a park bench by the walkway paved for jogging and biking to read his book. I plopped down on a park swing just far enough away for him not to see me watching him like this.
I waited for him to get comfortable. I’d been practicing for so long. This whole thing is so selfish, but I can’t help myself. He opened the book and began to read. After a few seconds I begin to read too.
I decided to write the scenery around us to make things easier for both of us. Mason did not notice the change such as the disappearance of everything around us. I decided it was time for him to put the book down beside him and stand up. He had always had an amazing grace in his movement. His posture always unwavering, his movement fluid and confident.
At this moment his confusion was visible on his face. It was time for a young woman to approach him on the walkway, me. The bounce of my brown curls had been exaggerated for the sake of the scene. Mason turned to see me, I hadn’t given him words to speak yet.
“L-laTrease, it is nice to see you”. I had almost written a frown on my face, Mason was fighting this, he is supposed to be fluid and graceful. I smiled and stood directly in front of him.
“Welcome to my world, Mason. Obviously you are confused, I’ll explain, but first,” Suddenly Mason and LaTrease were sitting across from each other at a coffee table, two cups of hot tea already poured between them. “This should be more comfortable.”
His mind was in the most italicized font one could imagine; I can write my own story but I can’t write a mind. I wish there was a way to calm the alarms ringing in his head, I can read it too.
“I have a special ability, if it hasn’t been made obvious already. I can read anything, for the most part. People are the easiest to properly understand since I am one, animals come next.” I picked up the cup of tea before me and blew on it four times to cool it down.
I had sacrificed many hours of my sanity each day to write this script so that everything would follow through as it should. I couldn’t tell reality from fantasy for days, even now it may take several minutes on the park swing to gather myself when this is done. I am, after all, rewriting my own story from memory.
I made Mason relax his body into the black love seat on his side of the table.
“I thought you would be someone I could finally show this to, it’s hard coming to terms with what i have. I also learned that it is easier to start a story while someone is reading, their mind is already there.” His brain processed my words and a flurry of thoughts flew through his head in panic.
“I understand that it is strange not truly having control of yourself here, I give you the freedom of your thoughts since I cannot and do not want to control them anyway.” He sat upright only to take a sip of his tea, set it down, and relax again. “Since I am writing everything that happens here I can not give you free will, hopefully I may figure that out in the future.”
We sat in a chilling silence to allow him to reminisce over what I have said. I can see why he’d want to believe this is an acid trip, but his mind kept running back to it. Time froze as I honed in on reading his thoughts between the lines of my story.
“What in god’s name is happening? Is my medication laced? It can’t be! The container was properly sealed. Could there have been something in my food? No, I didn’t taste anything. Maybe it was a new drug. Why can’t I move, ugh. What is with this psycho, whatever it is she isn’t safe, geez!” His mind rambled on about similar things.
“I can end the story here” I said interrupting his train of thought, the thought that he might die was the caboose. “No, that does not mean I will kill you. It means you will be back on the park bench reading that book of short stories I had suggested.”
We closed our eyes and opened them to find ourselves back at the park. Standing beside the walkway.
“I recommend you sit for a while and reorient yourself, remind yourself of the reality around you before you move around.” His mind grew slightly calm after my words, but one thought screamed loud and clear.
“I need to tell Melissa”
I can’t have him running around making this difficult.
I let out a chuckle, “Oh dear, I may have given you the freedom of your mind, but this freedom does not come with privacy. I’m shocked you haven’t realized.”
Every blade of grass in sight dried and browned. The tree immediately became engulfed in flames, the fire running out of fuel seconds after to expose charred wood surrounding us. Chains shot from the ground and bound Mason’s wrists, once fastened they pulled him to the ground. My will made him look up to me.
“I should have known this would never be like the fairy tales, it’s hard to understand that when I literally live them when you read them.” I allowed the panic in his head to show through his eyes, they seemed as if they were ready to burst.
Time froze once again as I took the time to think, not so much about what I was doing but more so about whether I really should do this. I had prepared myself for every outcome, I knew that I could take control of the situation in a second. If I finished this, there would be no one to believe Mason, just as I had endured. I can’t have anyone believing him, he’d only make it harder for me.
“Turn me into the authorities, I dare you.” I had unfroze time with these words and allowed clowns of all sizes to come from behind the trees and plant kisses on his face. Diamonds pushed out of the pores of his skin, one at a time. I allowed Mason to scream all he wanted, the real world would not hear him.
“I spent all my years of reading trying to show someone what was really happening.” I mumbled more so to myself than to the shrieking Mason on the ground. “It’s amounted to almost nothing now.”
The story finished there, on a cliff hanger.
I open my eyes just in time to see Mason shaking as he drops his book on the ground. He turns his head in the direction I had come from in the story, he then stands and walks in the direction.
Mason did not need to go far to finally see me. He did not have to think twice before he breaks out in a sprint, startling the mother nearby with her son. He dove at me on the swing, knocking me off onto the wood chips beneath us.
“What did you just do!” He screams, his hands going for my throat. “Let me go! Let me go!” He lifts my head and slams me against the wood chips over and over. I feel blood drip from the back of my head due to the splinters.
It took only a few seconds for a park ranger to rip him off of me. A young boy around age 9 helps me sit up and calls his mother to him
“My mom is a doctor, she can help you. She even carries a small first aid kit in her purse.” His mother came rushing towards us putting on latex gloves immediately. She began picking splinters out of my head while I watched the ranger cuff Mason.
Another police vehicle arrived to finish taking him away, an ambulance arrived right after for me. The boy and his mother helped me into the back of the ambulance.
On the ride to the hospital I spoke with the 9 year old whose name turned out to be Linus, he told me a lot about his mother, Maria, who was still treating the back of my head.
“I hope he isn’t bothering you too much darling,” Maria said behind me, “He loves to talk about books.”
“No it’s fine.” I wanted to laugh, she doesn’t even know. “He’s got quite the imagination.”
Linus frowned at me and opened his mouth in protest.
The story began at the top of a grassy hill in the middle of nowhere.
“I already know Linus, I believe you.” I winked at him.
Linus looked around him in awe, his eyes shined bright as he read the scene before him.
“I can read it all!” he exclaimed clapping his hands then turning to me. “Are you writing this?” I only nodded and prepared to end the story.
“Don’t try telling Maria, she won’t believe you.” Linus rolled his eyes at my words, he already knew that. “One day you will write like this.”
He grinned ear to ear as the world dissolved back into the ambulance as it pulled up to the hospital.
~~~
I received a letter a week before the battery case with Mason, two letters actually. The first one dating three days ago, stating that Mason’s mental state was not healthy enough to be put in a case, that he would be sent to an asylum instead. The second letter also dating three days ago stating that Mason had clawed at his throat until he ripped it open and died. The time given for the time of death was minutes before he was said to be picked up to be transferred to the asylum in the first letter.
Poor Mason, he wouldn’t even have a chance to tell the people crazy enough to believe him.
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jeichanhaka · 7 years
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And Carried Me Away: Ch. 13
Chapter 1|| Chapter 2|| Chapter 3|| Chapter 4|| Chapter 5|| Chapter 6||
Chapter 7|| Chapter 8|| Chapter 9|| Chapter 10|| Chapter 11|| Chapter 12||
Chapter 13|| Chapter 14|| Chapter 15||
Elsewhere:
"Please. Let us go." Melissa cried, covering her abdomen the best she could. She even tried fighting against the man who abducted her when he tore her arms away, his eyes glaring her stomach.
"...you're pregnant." He spoke coldly, his tone ice and his grip on the woman's wrists was biting. His nails dug into her flesh unconsciously, his focus and anger set on her abdomen. "You..."
Melissa's lips trembled, her heart thumping wildly. "Please...I'll do whatever. Just don't..."
The man merely glared at Melissa coldly, squeezing his fingers around her wrists tighter. His jaw set firm and his scowl rigid, he narrowed his eyes to slits. Not that his captive noticed. She did notice when he released his grip and stalked off a few feet, his footfalls heavy with anger.
She further heard the near unintelligibly mutters he made as he paced. Taking in a sharp, angry breath, he stopped pacing and turned toward Melissa.
"...you ain't got a boyfriend. You..." He mumbled, picking up an needle thin and sharp blade. His face livid and teeth clenched tightly he studied Melissa. "Not since...hheh." He made a strange sound, between a laugh and growl, as though figuring something out. "Is...is the father..."
"Please, please..." Melissa swallowed and repeated her plea.
The man just gave a breathy and wry laugh. Though Melissa couldn't see it, she could hear his twisted exuberance in his laugh.
"Seriously. You..." He licked his lip, putting down the blade he held.
Quantico:
Rossi closed the file he held and massaged his forehead, his curiosity about James' copycat rearing its head. Though that wasn't the only reason he was outside Garcia's computer room door. He needed more info on Linnet and the woman the man claimed was Cam's mother. He needed all he could find before heading to interview Linnet.
The senior agent knocked on the door, waiting just a few moments before opening it. "Garcia? I need you to do something, if you're not too busy..." Rossi said as he entered, his dark eyes trying to avoid glancing at the tech analyst's monitors. The last thing he could deal with was seeing information on James, especially if it linked his son to more victims.
"Sir! What is it you need?" Garcia piped after a paused, her chirpy tone forced. She seemed distressed.
"...Penelope? What's wrong? What is it?" Rossi asked before he could stop himself, his concern etched in his scrunched brow.
"I..." Garcia hesitated, covering her mouth. Her eyes wide from worry and horror. She seemed frozen, lost even, caught between keeping quiet and saying something horrible.
"Pen..." Rossi started to speak, to reassure the woman that she didn't have to say anything if it had to do with the copycat. The next moment the tech analyst interrupted, having decided on something.
"I...I was just searching through files on Melissa Joyce. To see what her mom was hiding, just in case it could lead to the unsub. I..." Garcia swallowed, and took a deep breath, her wide and caring gaze on the senior agent. "...she's...Melissa's...pregnant."
"Shit. That's..." Rossi cursed, his stomach twisting as he thought of what the unsub did to his victims, and felt sick. It was bad enough about the women being killed, but the possibility of an unborn child...
"Rossi, I..." Garcia started to speak, her voice catching. The look of horror and disgust and fear more intense than what Rossi expected. He paused, expecting the horror and concern, but not the...distress in the bubbly woman's eyes.
"What is it? Wha..." Rossi approached, wondering at the intensity of Garcia's distress. It was more than what was usual with the woman, more than any other time when a pregnant victim was a target of an unsub. It was almost...personal.
Rossi blanched, his eyes widening as an idea occurred to him. His knotted stomach knotting further, tensed by an idea that he'd never considered. "Garcia...how...how far along...is Melissa Joyce?"
"A...a little over sixteen weeks...I...sir..."
Rossi took a step back, feeling sick. His brain focused on how long it'd been since what happened in western New York. With James. It'd been around four months, give or take a few days. He shook his head, a tumult of various emotions engulfing him.
The ring of Garcia's phone cut through before either could say more.
0-Flashback: 1998-
"...igh...No, that's not..." The man mumbled, grimacing slightly. "...Alsie?"
She blinked open her eyes, shaking her head to clear it, while listening to the man's voice. Her head felt heavy, her sienna brown eyes opening to a dimly lit room. She took a deep breath. The smell of paper, like that from old books, filled her nostrils.
"Wha...where...? Ugh." She wiped her eyes and sat up, realizing only as she did so that she was on a sofa. It was a flowery one, soft and cushiony, like the one in her study at home. She realized, after a moment, that it was the one in her study. Her eyes widened and she stared at the man who'd addressed her. "Why...why are we here? Weren't we in the guest pallor? When did we get here?"
"...it's nothing to fret over." The man replied, the corners of his lips twitching. He quietly put something, a vial of some sort, in his shirt pocket. "You just had a headache, so I brought you up here and gave you some of your medicine. You've been resting awhile."
"Oh. All right." Alsie mumbled, laying her head back down on the pillow beside the sofa armrest. She took in a deep breath, before suddenly sneezing. Her heaviness of her head worsened, her sinuses feeling dammed up. "...shit. Did you spill one of granny's fragrances or potpourri or something?"
The man shook his head, carefully eyeing the 16 year old. Though there was actually only a year or so age difference between them, appearance-wise, the gap seemed to be longer. The fact that Alsie was still less than 5 feet and only recently started to develop secondary sexual characteristics intensified the apparent, visual, age difference.
Alsie massaged her sinuses and grumbled, pushing her hair from her face. Her scars free to the man's view.
"...why don't you get this fixed?" The man gestured towards the scaring, his fingers just centimeters above touching her skin. "Mrs. Schmidt has a fortune, you could easily get plastic surgery to fix it."
Alsie quickly covered her scar with her hand, forcing the man's hand away. Her sienna brown eyes glared at him even as they watered, her cheeks blanching. "...no. Never." She ghosted her fingers over her scar, her eyes directed toward the man but her thoughts elsewhere. "Never."
x
"...ver..."
Spencer listened to Alsie's mumbles as he laid her down on the bed. He had managed, after Jemma left and after a short struggle against Leigh, to inject the petite woman with the tranquilizer that her doctor had prescribed. He worried his lips with his teeth, feeling helpless and wrong for having to drug Alsie - the tranquilizer was a last resort, prescribed as a countermeasure whenever Emmie gained control and couldn't be stopped.
He hated having to use it on his sister, especially when it was his foolishness that had triggered her shift to Leigh and then again to Emmie. If he had only avoided touching Alsie's face or at least didn't let go of her hand, he could've avoided her shift to Leigh.
His eyes gazed down at his sister watching her breathe, his own chest starting to feel heavy. Looking at her now, in a medicated slumber, she seemed fragile and innocent. Her closed eyes no longer held the loathing that had frightened him into grabbing her wrists. It'd been instinctual, once he saw the glare Leigh gave Jemma, a glare filled with hatred and malice. He had immediately reacted to protect his niece, his brain sensing that the three-tear-old was in danger from Leigh.
It was only now, as he watched his sister sleep, that the full horror of the incident dawned on him. Leigh hated Jemma. Alsie's alter hated her daughter, loathed the toddler enough to be potentially violent. Spencer swallowed back the nausea bubbling in his stomach, wishing for what he'd seen to be a dream.
"...shit." Spencer covered his face, struggling not to be overwhelmed and trying to hold back the tears threatening his eyes.
Alsie loved Jemma, just hearing how his sister talked about her daughter proved that, yet Leigh detested the toddler. It was apparent that that alter couldn't be trusted around Jemma. How was he going to tell Alsie that? How was he going to be able to explain to Alsie that though he knew she loved Jemma and would be a great mom, he didn't think it wise to let Jemma stay with her? At least not alone. Not until her D.I.D was fully under control.
"...Pete..." Alsie mumbled, her eyes still closed and brain still unconscious from the tranquilizer. Spencer gazed down at her, not moving until a knock at the bedroom door drew his attention.
"Hey, I thought we were going to have lunch, and then bring Kai and Jemma to the park?" Joy asked, her brow furrowed seeing Alsie lying in bed. Her eyes widened when Spencer frowned sadly and shook his head. "What...?"
"Alsie...can't go. Not yet. Probably not today." Spencer replied, his sad glance at Alsie not missed by Joy. He sighed, the next moment becoming alarmed, his eyes widened. "Where's Jemma and Kai? Who's watching..."
"Don't worry. My husband Shawn came over a few minutes ago, he's watching them both." Joy paused, a bit curious and concerned. "Um, is Alsie okay? Did..."
"She's fine. Just...she just needs to rest." Spencer answered, not wishing to go into what had happened. Instead he mumbled about going to check on Jemma, while allowing Alsie to rest.
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oselatra · 5 years
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2019 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team
Meet the best and brightest high school seniors in the state.
The 2019 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team, the 25th team the Times has honored, is made up of coders, musicians, scientists and championship athletes. There's rarely a B on the transcripts of these students in not just this, their senior year, but in any year of their high school careers.
Back in 1995, the Times created the Academic All-Star Team to spotlight what we then called "the silent majority — the kids who go to school, do their homework (most of it, anyway), graduate and go on to be contributing members of society." Too often, we argued then, all Arkansans heard about young people was how poorly they were faring. Or, when students did get positive attention, it came for athletic achievement.
As you read profiles of this year's All-Stars, it should be abundantly clear that good things are happening in Arkansas schools and there are many academic achievers who deserve to be celebrated. You should get a good idea, too, of how these stellar students are busy outside school, with extracurricular activities, volunteer work, mission activities and more.
They'll be honored April 26 at a ceremony at UA Little Rock's new River Market campus with plaques and cash awards.
Many college plans listed here are not set in stone, as students await information on scholarships and acceptances.
MOHAMMED ABUELEM Age: 16 Hometown: Little Rock High School: Pulaski Academy Parents: Tarek Abuelem and Shireen Khalaf College plans: Harvard University
What accomplishments can a 16-year-old lay claim to? Mohammed Abuelem has earned prizes in competitions in science, essay writing, History Day projects, Spanish, math. He's studied DNA sequencing at Harvard; researched the effect of radiation on soybeans; aced all his classes at Pulaski Academy. But this teenager, two years younger than his classmates and fluent in Arabic, can also point to work with Syrian refugees in camps in Jordan for two summers running. After his sophomore year, Mohammed volunteered at the Zaatari refugee camp in the northern part of Jordan, where 60,000 people have taken refuge. There, he interviewed families and visited the medical clinics. He listened "to their stories and how their life is at the camp. ... I got the chance to see how medicine is practiced toward people who are part of a diaspora." He returned to Jordan after his junior year and distributed food and supplies to Syrian refugee families in the capital, Amman. "So many of the refugees are relocated toward urban areas, and don't get as many benefits" as those in the camps, Mohammed said. Mohammed decided to bring the lessons of the crisis home: "I wanted to involve local people here." So, he organized a benefit piano recital where he and others played (he performed a piece by the Greek composer Yanni) and raised $5,000 from the audience. Half the sum went to the Syrian Emergency Task Force and the other half to his Boy Scout Eagle project, building first-aid and hygiene kits for Syrian refugees. Because the Middle East is his passion, his senior thesis (in an elective class at Pulaski Academy) is on the Arab Spring and, because he is fluent, he was able to use primary sources in Arabic. As he heads to college, Mohammed is unsure of exactly where he'll put his considerable brain power to work. Though keen on many subjects, Mohammed's favorite is biology. His father, a neurosurgeon at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, "has emphasized that he wants me to choose the right path for me," rather than mirror his father's career, Mohammed said.
CHLOE BOWEN Age: 18 Hometown: Fayetteville High School: Springdale High School Parents: Yancey and Ginger Bowen College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville or University of Alabama
The last thing most high school students want to do just a few weeks before the start of their senior year is switch schools. For Chloe Bowen, though, the decision to transfer from Fayetteville High School, where she'd gone since ninth grade, to Springdale High School for her final year wasn't particularly difficult. Many of her friends had already graduated, and Chloe's burgeoning interest in engineering drew her to Springdale High's Engineering and Architecture Academy. "I was ready for a change — [a] new challenge," she said. She's certainly found it. Chloe signed up for four engineering classes, one of which has her working with a group of engineering students from the University of Arkansas to design a device that will allow one of Chloe's classmates, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, to walk across the stage at graduation. "Getting to collaborate with them has been a really great experience," she said. Chloe traces her interest in engineering to a human geography class she took in ninth grade, where she learned about urban development and city planning. She's not sure what type of engineering she'll settle on — for now, it's all about exploration and learning about a career that will draw on both her math-loving analytical side and her artistic interests. Chloe has flourished in Springdale's engineering and architecture academy. She's a National Merit Finalist, ranked first in her class with a 4.27 GPA, and she's developed a tight-knit group of new friends who share her interests. She recently helped run a STEM day for younger students and has represented the engineering and architecture academy at area junior highs.
Chloe is also active in her church youth group and has a part-time job working in another church's nursery. That doesn't leave much time for other hobbies. "I used to play volleyball, but I don't anymore," she said. "I've been pretty busy with homework and projects lately."
JORDAN ERICKSON Age: 18 Hometown: Hot Springs High School: Lake Hamilton High School Parent: Mandy Farmer College plans: Baylor University
Jordan Erickson is the big man on Lake Hamilton High School's campus. He's the class president, the valedictorian and a National Merit Semifinalist. He's also 6-foot-10 and was the captain of the basketball team, which went 25-3 and won its conference. "It meant a lot [to be captain] because I'd been playing basketball with these guys since fifth grade," Jordan said. While this season marks the end of his basketball career, look for him in pick-up games at Baylor University, where he'll be a University Scholar, a competitive program that generally accepts fewer than 2 percent of incoming Baylor students. The Scholars program will allow him to pursue an individualized course of study. Jordan is planning on studying one area in science, likely biology, and one in the humanities, likely Spanish. He plans to be a doctor and figures that knowing Spanish could be beneficial. He doesn't know what sort of doctor he wants to be, but has gotten some experience working with seniors with neurodegenerative diseases as a volunteer with The Caring Place, a day center for patients suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia. "The people there were just absolutely loving and caring, the staff as well as the patients," he said. "It was heartwarming and heartbreaking as well." Jordan's mom, Mandy Farmer, is a nurse practitioner. He resisted following in her footsteps for years, he said, but as he's gotten older he's realized what an inspiration she's been. She instilled in him a motto that he's obviously applied: "There is no penalty for overachievement."
KATE FREYALDENHOVEN  Age: 18 Hometown: Conway High School: Conway High School Parents: Tim and Mary Ann Freyaldenhoven College plans: Rhodes College in Memphis
Kate Freyaldenhoven is competitive. Ranked second in her class at Conway High School, she said she was driven to "achieve the highest grades" in all her courses by the same ambition that earned her spots on the school's varsity cross-country and track teams. She has a 4.42 grade point average, and she said it's this "kind of tenacity" that earned her the perfect score of a 36 on the ACT. After two attempts that earned her a 33 and a 34, Kate said, "I pushed myself to do the best that I can do, and I'm very glad that I took it again." She's taking this tenacity to Rhodes College in Memphis, where she recently signed to run on its cross-country and track and field team. Kate said she decided on Rhodes because she knew she wanted to run in college, but her education was most important, and she wanted to go to a school that "was great with balancing academics and athletics." She said Rhodes felt like a "great fit" for her, and she'll be able to grow "not only as a student, but as an athlete." Another crucial part of her decision to attend Rhodes is the "plethora" of community service organizations the school offers. Kate said that as a kid, her mother took her along when doing service work for nonprofits, and since then, volunteering has been "a really big part of my life." Two summers ago, Kate also participated in the Community Health Applied in Medical Public Service program at Conway Regional Hospital, where she "witnessed firsthand different aspects of working in the medical field." She said she's interested in pursuing a medical career, perhaps as a physician, so she can use her "passion for science and math to contribute something beneficial." Kate said she's looking forward to research and internship opportunities in Memphis and to the "close-knit community" she said she felt on Rhodes' campus.
MARY JIA Age: 17 Hometown: Stuttgart High School: Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts Parents: Melissa and Yulin Jia College plans: Undecided
Mary Jia knows what she wants to do, and what she wants to do is study rice. "Rice is so amazing!" she said, with an enthusiasm so genuine she'll make you excited about rice, too. She said it's a model genome to study in plant science, and she's particularly interested in the "biological sciences and the numerology behind rice." Mary has applied to 16 different schools, but her top choice is the California Institute of Technology, where her favorite physicist, Sean M. Carroll, works as a professor. She said she plans on studying rice by pursuing an M.D.-Ph.D., a combined doctorate of medicine and philosophy, which can take between seven and nine years to complete. "With an M.D., you learn a little bit of everything, which is basically my goal in life," Mary said. "And a Ph.D. is more specific." Mary's research at the Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center earned her a semifinalist spot in the Regeneron Science Talent Search. She's the only finalist from Arkansas. Her project studied the blast disease resistance of three strains of rice, a process through which Mary said she hopes to find "resistance genes" to help keep farmers from having to use fungicides on their rice crops. During a recent trip to visit family in China, Mary was able to appreciate the opportunities she's had to study her passion. "I really want my family to one day be able to enjoy the same things that I do, to go out in the world and realize they can be whatever they want," she said. Ranked No. 1 in her class at Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, Mary is also a member of the school's Grandma Club, which teaches "relaxing" skills such as knitting — Mary's specialty — and origami to the "future grandmas of America."
ISABELLE FLORENCE JONES Age: 18 Hometown: Jonesboro High School: The Academies at Jonesboro High School Parents: Robert and Mary Kay Jones College plans: Boston College
Isabelle Jones has been called "Dizzy Izzy" since she was a little girl, thanks to the energy she displayed in trying to keep up with her two big sisters. But Izzy, as she likes to be called, could also be called "Busy Izzy" because of the many school leadership positions she holds — student council president, National Honor Society treasurer, Spanish Honor Society president, to name a few — and other academic honors. She's No. 1 in her class. She swims, she runs cross-country. She volunteers at St. Bernards Hospital and the Hispanic Center. She's known, she said, as "that liberal person" at school because of her progressive views on gun control. Izzy said the most significant achievement of her high school career was organizing, as head of the local Students Demand Action chapter, the March for Our Lives last year. Calling "Show me what democracy looks like!" into her bullhorn, Izzy and other organizers led 200 people from Jonesboro High to the courthouse. The speakers included a survivor of Jonesboro's Westside Middle School shooting in 1998, in which two boys shot and killed five people and injured 10 others. Izzy spoke, too, about those who would shift the conversation away from guns and onto mental illness. "I spoke to the fact that someone who suffers from mental illness is more likely to be a victim" of gun violence than to cause it, she said. "People use it as a scapegoat." Because the Students Demand Action members were too young to get a permit for the march, the local Moms Demand Action helped out. "The Moms were so amazing; they let us take control of what we wanted to say," Izzy said. If you are an activist in a "big city," Izzy said, you can "talk to your elected officials and not get the door shut in your face. Here, to talk about gun control, it's a nonstarter, because people think it means you're going to take their guns away." So, Izzy's group focuses on having a community presence, participating in fairs and writing letters. Izzy is ready for big-city life and wants to pursue studies in global health, which is why she applied early decision to Boston College, which plans to offer a major in the field. Boston College has offered Izzy a Gabelli Presidential Scholars scholarship, which is a full-tuition award and goes to only 15 incoming freshmen every year. After college, the plan is med school and, someday, travel to help people in need of medical care with Doctors Without Borders.
JEREMIA LO Age: 18 Hometown: Fayetteville High School: Fayetteville High School Parents: Hsiaowen Cho and Wenjuo Lo College plans: Undecided
Jeremia Lo found her high school niche with Connotations, Fayetteville High School's annual literary magazine, where she serves as design director. When she joined the staff as a junior, she discovered a community of people who enjoy writing, art and photography as much as she does. Digital art has been a passion ever since her dad installed Adobe Photoshop on the family's computer when she was 10 years old. "Years of practice — setting aside time on the weekends to do photostudies and learn color theory — eventually turned jagged lines and irregular proportions into realistic portrayals of faces and creatures," Jeremia wrote in her Academic All-Stars essay. "Via the versatility of digital art — a medium that easily allows me to dabble in design, animation and drawing — I've been able to practice my communication skills by analyzing how details and the big picture work together to convey meaning to viewers." In the short run, thanks to those skills, she's made some spending money doing commissioned portraits and seen the designs for clubs and classes that show up all over the school. Longer term, she's considering a career in UI/UX (user interface/experience) design. To that end, she's planning on majoring in cognitive science or psychology to help her think about how people process design. But art isn't her only passion. While maintaining a 4.37 GPA and a No. 1 rank in her senior class of more than 500 students, she also found time to serve as publicist for the World Language Club and to co-found the Fayetteville High School History Club, realizing "that there are many important events in history that are often overlooked in our curriculum." She grew up in a Mandarin-speaking family, has taken five years of German and is studying Japanese on her own. Spanish, French and Korean are on her to-learn list.
TYLER MERREIGHN Age: 17 Hometown: Greenwood High school: Greenwood High School Parents: Ty and Josie Merreighn College plans: Undecided
When Tyler Merreighn auditioned for "Jeopardy!" last summer, he was coming in with over seven years of trivia experience: He's been on a Quiz Bowl team since he was in third grade. He's now captain of Greenwood High School's team, and in 2018 he led it to a second-place finish at the 6A Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association. While he didn't make the final cut for the game show, he said he would definitely try out again, and next time he'll be "a little more prepared." He'll have to find time to do that while majoring in biomedical engineering on a pre-med path. He hopes to attend the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he's applied for the prestigious Bodenhamer Fellowship, which awards a select group of students $70,000 scholarships over the course of their education. During an educational trip to Peru with his high school in the summer of 2017, Tyler said he visited a community in Cusco and loved "seeing [the children's] faces light up when you could do something so simple for them," like playing a game of soccer. This experience helped him realize that "whatever I do, I definitely want to be able to help people." Last summer he attended the two-week Medical Applications for Science and Health program at Baptist Health in Fort Smith. MASH requires participants to complete 40 hours a week of shadowing in a hospital. Tyler said the experience affirmed his desire to become a physician, as he "really loved the atmosphere of the hospital." He took the ACT seven times in order to get a perfect score because "I just felt like I could do it, and if I didn't get [a perfect score], then I just felt like I was letting myself down."
KENDON MOLINE Age: 17 Hometown: Conway High School: Conway High School Parents: Rebekkah and Corey Moline College plans: Brigham Young University
Kendon Moline said he has always liked learning how things are built, and as a child, he once spent an entire afternoon watching his neighbors get a new roof installed. A self-described "musician, math nerd, bowler and engineer," he's now third in his class at Conway High School and plans to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in the fall to study civil engineering. He's particularly interested in transportation planning, so civil engineering "falls right in line" with that passion. Kendon is so interested in engineering that he received the top possible score on his AP Physics C exam — a class his high school doesn't even offer. While he said he's "not the best at studying," he put in "a lot of effort" for the test because "if it's something you're passionate about, you'll commit to it." Kendon is also committed to his faith, as he'll only be attending BYU for a semester before he leaves to take part in his two-year mission as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He's looking forward to his mission, during which he'll be able to "share my beliefs, the Gospel, to help others and to grow." While many young men begin their missions immediately after high school, his parents encouraged him to do a semester of school first in order to "get out of the house and be more independent," so he's not "too shocked" when he does venture out on his own. He said he plans on returning to school after his mission. Kendon also plays the trombone in his school's marching band, bowls for the school team and is working toward earning his Eagle Scout badge.
ANNA OPPENHEIM Age: 18 Hometown: Jonesboro High School: Bay High School Parents: Tim and Lisa Oppenheim College plans: Columbia University
A conscientious leader, Anna Oppenheim uses her voice to make fellow Bay High School students heard. Her community-driven work ethic has come through in her service as student council president and senior class president. She's also used her voice as editor of the school newspaper to connect students and tell their unique stories, such as the feature she wrote about an eighth-grade boy who rescued his family — including his young siblings and stepmother, who had a broken leg — from their burning house. As a learner, Anna has always been interested in taking things apart and reassembling them. As a child, she was fascinated with the human skeleton and memorized every bone. "I know that sounds weird," she said. But her natural aptitude for science and medicine blossomed at an orthopedic surgery program through the Perry Initiative for women in medicine, where she performed a mock orthopedic surgery. After being handed a bone model, a bone saw and a few screws and rods, she was told to break the bone model, then figure out how to put it back together. Anna credits her success in that orthopedic exercise to her background in art, explaining that her artistic disposition helped her creatively place the rods and screws into the bones. Anna hopes to become a doctor, but said art will always be a part of her life. "Throughout my life, art has been a unifying thread, and I never want that passion to die," she said. She's auctioned her artwork to benefit various charities, like the Northeast Humane Society, the American Heart Association and the St. Bernards Health and Wellness Institute.
FELIPE MORALES OSORIO Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High School: Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School Parents: Felipe and Norma Morales College plans: Undecided
Felipe Morales Osorio has a knack for learning on his own. He taught himself pre-calculus, so he could skip straight to calculus. When his world history teacher became ill and had to leave the class mid-year, he worked on the subject independently to earn a 4 (out of 5) on the World History AP exam, meaning he's likely to receive college credit for the course. He's made a habit of turning to Khan Academy, the online collection of free academic courses, to augment or supplement his studies, and it shows: He has a 4.42 GPA and is No. 1 in his class at Parkview. Perhaps his proudest learning achievement came during a Central Arkansas Library System JavaScript coding class he took when he was 12, considerably younger than most of his classmates. He struggled, but studied hard and by the end of the summer he'd created a small version of the original Nintendo "Legend of Zelda" game. He's done grander coding projects since then, but the flash drive that stores that game sits on his bedside table as a reminder of what dedication and perseverance can mean. Felipe is considering computer science as a career path, but he's been leaning toward becoming a research mathematician. "I think math is very beautiful," he said. "There's math everywhere around us. It's in the weather. It's in the seashells. It's in almost everything. It's useful in a wide variety of fields. Science is always changing. But in math, it's more concrete and more absolute. When you prove something, like a theorem, you're proving it using logical arguments. Once you prove it, it's absolute. That really appeals to me, that it has a solid foundation."
JACKSON PARKER Age: 18 Hometown: Paragould High School: Paragould High School Parents: Melanie Parker and Jonathan Lane College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville or Yale University, undecided
Jackson Parker speaks in a measured and self-assured tone that usually only comes with older age. He's good under pressure, evidenced by his many performance-based academic accolades, including scoring a perfect 36 on the ACT, winning the Arkansas State Spelling Bee in 2015, and earning Most Valuable Player in the Arkansas State Quiz Bowl in 2016. Concentrating for long stretches of time will serve him well as a heart surgeon, which he hopes to become one day. "I like the hands-on approach of surgery," he explained. It's an approach Parker has taken to further many of his interests, including his favorite subject, chemistry (he's an alumnus of the summer health program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences); music (he plays flute in the high school band and is a student of music theory), fine art (he draws inspiration from 19th century American landscape painter Thomas Cole) and architecture (American Gothic is his favorite style). "I want to apply myself toward everything I care about like a true Renaissance man," Parker said, adding a personal philosophical view that the arts and sciences, when paired, are fundamental to "understanding the greater physics of the universe." He is a burgeoning Renaissance humanist: While many high school students would rather follow the norm, at least socially and politically, Parker doesn't hesitate to sit at the empty table. Inspired by his grandmother, he's been active with the Greene County Democratic Party, which is so small, Parker said, "it can be hard to feel like you're making a difference." He continues to volunteer with the party because "it's important to start somewhere. You need to have the other side of the moral compass present." In fact, Parker expects to have a career in politics in some way, although he's not sure how. He just knows that "politics affect our lives daily, and if we want our problems to be solved, we have to play an active role."
NOAH BLAKE RABY Age: 18 Hometown: Newport High School: Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts Parents: Jennifer Raby, Angela Lawson and the late Jerry Raby College plans: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Last summer, Noah Raby spent six weeks in Chengdu, China, as part of a National Security Language Initiative for Youth program. He'd decided to take Mandarin at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts because, of all the foreign language options, it was the one he "was most uncomfortable with." That willingness to throw himself into the unfamiliar served him well while living with his host family and being served rabbit skull, with its brain, tongue and tendons that hold the jaw to the rest of skull still intact. "Despite how disgusting that might sound, it was actually pretty good," Noah said. Still, eating in the famously piquant Sichuan province wasn't a picnic for Noah, who describes himself as "not really a man of spiciness." Noah plans on minoring in Mandarin at M.I.T. while he's majoring in computer science. The combo could allow him to score a computer-engineering job with a Chinese company down the line. He got his love for computers from his late father, Jerry Raby, a longtime cable installer for Suddenlink who died of cancer just before Noah enrolled in the ASMSA. Noah remembers spending weekends with his dad working on tech projects: fixing a broken Xbox, making flammable thermite from material they bought on eBay, and doing various computer science projects. Noah built his first computer at age 11. His computer-related innovations have made an impact on ASMSA. His science fair project on texturizing ceramic additive manufacturing inspired the school to buy its own ceramic 3D printer.
ADAM SIWIEC Age: 17 Hometown: Rogers High School: Rogers Heritage High School Parents: Ashley and Tomek Siwiec College plans: Stanford University or University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
Adam Siwiec knows there's power in language. When he sits at a computer, coding language lets him create websites, software testing metrics and a laundry list of other things most of us have never heard of. When he sits at his typewriter, though, the language of poetry lets him explore a whole other world — where nature, consciousness and inner reflection dominate the landscape. Adam has pursued both languages with an ambitious determination. He's a National Merit Semifinalist, ranked first in his class, is the All-State Programming Champion, placed second at the University of Arkansas Hackathon and founded his school's computer science club. He's also self-published two books of poetry, the most recent through Amazon's publishing service. "That was a really big deal for me," he said. "I got a box of a hundred books with my name on it sent to my door, and I didn't know what to do with them. So I started handing them out, then selling them. That was fun, adding in the business side of it, too." After he read an article about internet censorship in China, he combined his two interests to create a website that pulled in the poems he had published on Instagram so that people in China, who are not allowed access to the social media site, could read his poetry. Adam plans to study computer science in college and minor in creative writing. He already has some professional coding experience under his belt from spending last summer in Poland working with his uncle's digital services agency. "I think that being a writer, it's really hard to succeed if you're not a New York Times bestseller," he said. "I really want to work for a large company like Google or Apple and do poetry as a hobby."
CLAUDIA SMITH Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High School: eStem Public Charter School Parents: Will and Sara Smith College plans: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
Finding a balance between academic priorities and sports can be tricky, but Claudia Smith manages to do this and advocate for her fellow students at eStem Public Charter School. In addition to competing on the school's soccer and cross-country teams, Claudia and a friend started the Gender and Sexuality Alliance during their junior year at eStem. She did so because she wanted to "have a place for people to meet and feel like they had friends that are facing the same kinds of problems" as they are. The Alliance also works to help the community: It recently finished raising $400 for Lucie's Place, a nonprofit that provides resources and housing for homeless LGBTQ youth. No. 1 in her graduating class, Claudia is heading to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville this fall, where she plans to study engineering. While she's "really into math" and it's her favorite subject in school, she said the engineering program will allow her to do more "hands-on" work. Because eStem is a small school, she's looking forward to being on the UA's large campus with "a wider variety of people and opportunities to pursue [that] will give me more to get involved in." Claudia said she recently took a tour of the campus and was told that the school has several noncompetitive running groups, which she plans to join to keep her cross-country skills up to speed. She said her interest in politics will travel with her to Fayetteville, and she looks forward to getting involved with social justice organizations on campus.
CHASE MARIE SWINTON Age: 17 Hometown: Sherwood High School: Sylvan Hills High School Parents: Rick and Germaine Swinton College plans: Considering Vanderbilt University
Chase Swinton, who plans on studying neuroscience in college, has gotten just about as much hands-on experience in the field possible for a high school student. She learned about neurodegeneration in a project-based learning summer class at Washington University in St. Louis during the summer after her sophomore year. Last summer, she interned with Dr. Antiño Allen at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, working on NASA-funded research concerning "oxygen space radiation affecting hippocampal-dependent memory and cognitive function," as she described it in her All-Stars essay. In October, she was accepted to attend the Harvard Science Research Conference, where she learned about "computational advances in axon and neuron imaging." She's usually been the only African-American girl in such groups. That can be "difficult and lonely and isolating," she said, but as co-chair of the Principal's Council, a group that mentors middle school students, Sylvan Hills' valedictorian has gotten the chance to be an example for younger black female students. "One of my favorite sayings is 'representation begets representation.' If I'm a model for you, you'll be a model for someone else, and they'll be a model for someone else. That's really important in the black community, especially in STEM and for girls," she said. Chase's commitment to seeing things through shows in her soccer career. She was named all-conference as a freshman, but then sprained a ligament in her knee her sophomore year and suffered other knee injuries her junior year. Because of her UAMS internship, she couldn't have surgery to repair the knee over the summer, so she had to miss playing her senior year. But she's still the manager. "I didn't want to abandon the team," she explained.
ETHAN STRAUSS Age: 17 Hometown: Little Rock High School: Episcopal Collegiate School Parents: Noel and Joan Strauss College plans: Dartmouth College
Last summer, Ethan Strauss got a rare opportunity for a high school student. He interned at Forest Hill Capital, a small Little Rock investment firm, and he didn't spend his time there getting coffee and filing documents. Tasked with modeling the financial growth of a construction materials company to determine its investment potential, Ethan "read through five years of the company's quarterly reports and synthesized its income and cash flow statements and balance sheets," he wrote in his All-Stars essay, and then "linked the spreadsheets and used linear regressions to approximate future share prices." He may continue down that path by majoring in economics at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., but he's also considering international relations. He's been interested in geography since he was a child. He loves learning about different cultures. He's drawn to "the complexity of it all and being able to understand how other people think." He's particularly fascinated by unrecognized countries, areas that are self-proclaimed independent nations "and how it would be to live" in one. Pursuing a career in infrastructure investment could be a way for him to combine investments and international relations. He's sure to maintain a healthy dose of pursuits outside of his studies and work: A tennis ace, he's been half of a doubles team that's won the 3A state championship for four years in a row. He's also passionate about pingpong. His Episcopal counselor, Tricia Morgan, said he blushes when school staffers tell him pingpong "could be his Olympic sport." He's also working to share the sport with others. With the profits from a business he started reselling hard-to-find sneakers, he founded Paddle Together, a program that provides pingpong tables to homeless shelters and community centers.
SHAKIAH WILLIAMS Age: 17 Hometown: Blytheville High school: Blytheville High School Parents: Sharon Harris and Africa Wells College plans: Vanderbilt University
Mississippi County's entire population is less than that of the city of Conway. Shakiah (pronounced "Sha-kai-ah") Williams was born and raised there, in Blytheville. Some would say it's a sleepy town. Williams' high school years, however, have been quite the opposite. After school, she'd report to one of her two major extracurricular commitments: practice for the Blytheville High School cheerleading squad, or to practice and conditioning sessions as part of her membership on the Blytheville Chickasaw GymChicks gymnastics team. Add to that her membership in the school's French Club, FBLA, student council and Student Ambassadors; her time volunteering for the local chapters of both the Special Olympics and National Cancer Society; and her work with the annual Blytheville Christmas celebration "Lights of the Delta." "Honestly, this year it became stressful because of all the work I've had to get done, alongside the sports," Williams said. Part of that work, of course, was preparing to leave the high school nest. "College has always been a stressful subject for me," she wrote in her Academic All-Stars essay. "At one point in time I didn't even have the confidence to apply. I just didn't think I would make it." Her transcript shows how unfounded her fears were: Williams has a 4.22 grade point average. Her ACT score is a composite 30. Her language teacher, Lena Pierce, took her to Nashville to visit her dream school, Vanderbilt University. Williams was subsequently accepted, with just "a few thousand [dollars] a year to get covered," she wrote. "This achievement has helped me take some of the stress off of my mom. She is a single parent and having college paid for is just another weight off of her shoulders."
MICHELLE XU Age: 16 Hometown: College Station, Texas High School: Little Rock Central High School Parents: Joshua Xu and Alice Li College plans: University of Pennsylvania
When Michelle Xu found out she'd been accepted into the University of Pennsylvania, she said it was the happiest day of her life. Last summer she attended the university's Leadership in the Business World program, an intensive four-week curriculum of Wharton School of Business classes, during which Michelle's team created a startup business plan and presented it to their classmates. Michelle said she's "liked being a leader" since she was a child, and the LBW program helped her "[connect] the dots on how as a leader you lead by putting aside your ego." She said she aspires to be a "good leader in the business world," She's the first high school member of the Arkansas Association of Asian Businesses. She's also captain of Central High School's varsity Quiz Bowl team; president of its Future Business Leaders of America chapter, president of the Beta Club; vice president of Mu Alpha Theta, the school's math club; and president and founder of the school's Economics and Finance Club. Michelle said she founded the new club so students could learn about economics, rather than the "pure business" focus of the FBLA club. As valedictorian of her class, Michelle said she uses "a lot of time management" to balance her academic workload with her extracurriculars, and has had to make some sacrifices — she danced competitively until her sophomore year and played piano until her junior year, but quit both in order to focus on her classes and leadership roles. Michelle visits her family in China every three or four years, and she said a recent trip to her parents' hometowns helped her realize that "if my parents worked this hard to get to America, I need to work this hard to show them that I will continue their work."
RAMY YOUSEF Age: 17 Hometown: Little Rock High School: Little Rock Central High School Parents: Ziad Yousef and Muntaha Yousef College plans: Hendrix College or the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
One glance at Ramy Yousef's transcript makes it clear that he has good study skills. He's ranked seventh in his class of 550 at Central High School, with a GPA of 4.43 in classes as diverse as art, debate and pretty much every AP class ever taught. But it's a question about attending Arkansas Governor's School last summer that really gets him talking about what he loves about education. "You get to learn in an environment where you don't get grades," he said. "Making friends and just waking up and going to learn every day — it was a fun experience." Ramy's motivation to do well in high school has been, he said, simply to get into a good college and pay as little as possible for it. He's got a loftier goal for when he gets there, though: to study chemistry and eventually put that knowledge to work developing new vaccines. Science is a family pursuit. Ramy's dad is an entrepreneur, but his mother is a scientist, one sibling is in medical school and the other is in college studying biomedical engineering. Ramy does science even in his downtime, watching astronomy videos on YouTube. That interest took him to a first-place finish in astronomy at the 2017 Arkansas Science Olympiad. What's so cool about astronomy? "Just the possibility that life can exist on another planet," he said.
2019 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team
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Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/
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Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.
They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.
But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.
Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.
“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”
Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”
On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.
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Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.
It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.
“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.
Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.
“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”
So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.
“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”
Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”
Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”
But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”
DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.
Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.
Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.
By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”
And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.
The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.
“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”
Image
Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.
“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.
Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”
Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.
But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.
“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.
For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”
But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.
As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.
Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58
0 notes
blogcompetnetall · 5 years
Text
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/
Nature
Image
Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.
They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.
But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.
Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.
“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”
Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”
On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.
Image
Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.
It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.
“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.
Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.
“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”
So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.
“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”
Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”
Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”
But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”
DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.
Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.
Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.
By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”
And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.
The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.
“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”
Image
Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.
“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.
Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”
Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.
But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.
“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.
For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”
But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.
As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.
Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58
0 notes
blogwonderwebsites · 5 years
Text
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/
Nature
Image
Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.
They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.
But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.
Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.
“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”
Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”
On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.
Image
Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.
It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.
“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.
Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.
“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”
So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.
“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”
Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”
Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”
But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”
DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.
Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.
Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.
By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”
And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.
The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.
“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”
Image
Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.
“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.
Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”
Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.
But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.
“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.
For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”
But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.
As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.
Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58
0 notes
computacionalblog · 5 years
Text
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side http://www.nature-business.com/nature-in-a-mississippi-restaurant-two-americas-coexist-side-by-side/
Nature
Image
Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.
They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.
But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.
Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.
“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”
Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”
On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.
Image
Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.
It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.
“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.
Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.
“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”
So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.
“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”
Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”
Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”
But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”
DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.
Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.
Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.
By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”
And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.
The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.
“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”
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Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.
“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.
Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”
Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.
But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.
“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.
For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”
But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.
As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.
Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”
Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/trump-kavanaugh-mississippi-.html |
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58
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internetbasic9 · 5 years
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Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side https://ift.tt/2NtWomE
Nature
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Lovetta Green stayed away from President Trump’s rally last week because she dislikes him so much. “When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV,” she said.CreditCreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Crystal Walls and Lovetta Green have the easy warmth that comes with working together 23 years, Ms. Walls as a waitress and Ms. Green in the kitchen of the restaurant where everyone in town seems to gather.
They share a fierce loyalty to Dale’s restaurant, its signature chicken and dressing dish, and to the late owner, Dale Graham, who used to slip Ms. Green money to buy her children birthday presents when she was short.
But they agree on virtually nothing about politics, side by side in their separate Americas in the city where President Trump lit into Christine Blasey Ford and the #MeToo movement last week, to cheers from the crowd.
Ms. Walls, 60, who is white, was there with her 16-year-old grandson, rapt. Ms. Green, 45, who is black, stayed away from a president she dislikes so much that she grabs the remote whenever he appears on television.
“I don’t like everything to do with him,” Ms. Green said. “The way he was womanizing, talking bad toward women, I can’t respect him as a president. When he gets up to talk, I just change the TV. From the gate, he just struck me wrong.”
Ms. Walls’s verdict on the rally: “It was pretty awesome.” And on the #MeToo movement: “Any woman can say anything. You know as well as I do, they bring it on themselves, to get up the ladder, to destroy somebody they don’t care for. I think it’s something that should be kept personal. Sure there’s a lot of bad guys in this world doing a lot of things they shouldn’t have been.”
On cable news and social media, hurling insults across the political divide has become the background noise of American life. But in Southaven, a more intimate and constrained dynamic is playing out. Here two friends do not have the luxury of sealing themselves off from those with opposing views. They navigate their differences as part of their daily shifts.
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Crystal Walls attended Mr. Trump’s rally with her grandson and agreed with his criticism of Chrstine Blasey Ford.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Their lives intersect even as their politics do not. When Ms. Green got her job at Dale’s, Ms. Walls had already been there 23 years, having started at the age of 14 working a 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. The two women lived as children within a few miles of each other in Whitehaven, just across the Tennessee border. (When she was 7, Ms. Walls moved to Nesbit, Miss., just nine miles from Southaven.) They both spent years raising their children as single parents. They commiserate about crime and watch their grandchildren like hawks.
It took a while for them to open up to each other about politics, but that reticence is long gone.
“We can talk about it but sometimes it gets heated and we have to bring ourselves down to reality,” Ms. Green said. “Somebody might have to come out of the office and say, ‘What the heck is going on?’”
Take their sparring about President Trump’s comments about Dr. Blasey’s testimony. They agreed they couldn’t understand why women had waited so long to confront men they accused of assault, whether in the case of Bill Cosby or Brett M. Kavanaugh. And they both drew a distinction between rape and attempted rape.
Ms. Walls said her own daughter was raped, beaten and left unconscious in a motel about 20 years ago. That led her to be more skeptical of Dr. Blasey’s account of continuing trauma and gaps in memory, as well as any explanation that post-traumatic stress disorder might be to blame.
“PTSD, c’mon, get real,” she said. “Maybe she needs to talk to some servicemen that really understand PTSD. It’s not that I don’t understand rape, big time. But if it affects you that bad, which it did my daughter, you go to counseling, whatever you need to do. My daughter’s gone on just fine with her life.”
So when President Trump launched into an imitation of Dr. Blasey’s testimony, Ms. Walls found herself laughing along, if a bit guiltily. Ms. Green countered that when Dr. Blasey first testified, President Trump had told aides he thought she came across as sincere. Then he turned on her at the rally.
“And he got up there and they say he mocked her when he was at the center, that just doesn’t sit well with me,” she said. “That means you are flip-flopping on their side. As the president, you shouldn’t have mocked her, period, even though Kavanaugh is going up for judge.”
Ms. Walls: “Even though what he said was true.”
Ms. Green: “Shut up, C. Quit it. See, this is how we get started.”
But even as they square off, they are careful with each other, reaching out to pat an arm or clutch a hand, sometimes even backing down a bit. Ms. Walls told her friend that she agreed it was unseemly for a president to act that way. “He should have been quiet, showed a little bit more integrity,” she said. “But I did laugh, and I agreed, and it sounded from that crowd like everyone agreed.”
DeSoto County, where Southaven is located, voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, 66 percent to 31 percent for Hillary Clinton. It was a small hamlet until the 1970s, when the suburban population expanded as courts ordered busing in nearby Memphis. An explosion of Memphis-based freight services like FedEx and Southaven’s highly-regarded public schools drew more families, black and white. Now Southaven is the third-largest city in Mississippi. It’s a place of pleasant, if often treeless, subdivisions and large strip malls, with no central downtown. Dale’s, which opened in 1966, stands out for its bright pink exterior and is one place friends can find each other, along with church and school.
Southaven is 71 percent white and 22 percent black, according to the 2010 census. Because most of its housing was developed after the 1970s, neighborhoods are generally integrated, and so are schools. But political loyalties appear starkly divided by race — nearly every white person interviewed in the area backed Mr. Trump, and every black person opposed him.
Candy Jordan, a black office administrator, blames the president for incidents of racial hostility that she had never experienced before his election. She said her daughters’ friend was called a racial epithet by an elderly neighbor who accused the teenager of ruining her flower bed. “There’s a difference between following a person and following what’s right,” she said.
By contrast, Jill Gregory, who is raising three children in the nearby town of Olive Branch and is white, said, “Trump is the only president that’s been elected and he doesn’t have any other interest than serving the American people.”
And so it went at Dale’s, despite the evident affection of the staff for each other. Ms. Green said all the Trump supporters she knew were white, prompting an uneasy rejoinder from Melissa Thomas, the general manager. “What does that mean?” said Ms. Thomas, herself a fervent Trump backer. Last week, she and her daughter, Ms. Gregory, had made sure to be at the rally site by 6:30 a.m., nine hours before it was scheduled to start.
The day after the rally was particularly trying, as Ms. Green listened to the exuberant waves of co-workers and patrons who had attended.
“Just like y’all were tired of me talking about Obama when he was in it, I’m tired about y’all talking about what you did yesterday,” she said she told them. “And I walked out from the whole conversation.”
Image
Melissa Thomas, a manager at Dale’s restaurant in Southaven, Miss., checked on customers during the lunch rush on Sunday.CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times
Later she said she realized she may have been too harsh — after all, seeing a president was part of history. But that didn’t change Ms. Green’s opinion of Mr. Trump, despite the argument of Ms. Thomas, the general manager, that he was improving the economy.
“We got more money in our checks,” Ms. Thomas told her.
Ms. Green was having none of it. “Do I? How do you know? You’re the boss lady. Really? We don’t see a change.”
Ms. Green and Ms. Walls differ on almost everything Mr. Trump has done — the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, even his posture toward North Korea.
But the two women cannot afford the rage that has consumed partisans these past weeks. They do not want to torpedo an affection that has deepened over the years. And so they were more modulated in their views when they were together than when they spoke separately.
“We can get into some throwdowns, but five minutes later we’re talking like we’re best friends,” Ms. Walls said.
For all her ardent conservatism, Ms. Walls has her own qualms about Mr. Trump. “I got to wait and see how he finishes this before I decide if I vote for him again,” she said. “He’s a loose cannon in a lot of other ways.”
But she is unyielding in her belief that the confirmation battle was a Democratic ploy to block a conservative justice. That has made her more determined to vote Republican in the midterm elections next month. Ms. Green is equally certain she’ll vote Democratic and that the country would be better off with a different president.
As the two women talked, Ms. Thomas drifted in and out, circling the room asking customers how they liked their heaping plates of food. The manager works seven days at week at Dale’s, which just won the “Spirit of Main Street” award from the chamber of commerce. “I cried,” she said.
Thinking back over the confirmation battle, listening to Ms. Green and Ms. Walls joke and joust, she allowed herself a plaintive question. It was about the country as much as the chatter at Dale’s: “How can we both hear the same thing and get something totally different out of it?”
Read More | https://ift.tt/2E8Efv9 |
Nature In a Mississippi Restaurant, Two Americas Coexist Side by Side, in 2018-10-08 17:40:58
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gwynnew · 7 years
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'E.T.' at 35: Older bro Robert MacNaughton tells what 'D&D' at Harrison Ford's, 'Weird Al,' Elvis Costello had to do with it
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From left, Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Robert MacNaughton in ‘E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL,’ 1982 (Photo: Everett Collection)
Robert MacNaughton has seen E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial many times, in many ways, in the 35 years since he starred as Elliot’s older brother Michael in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi family classic. He’s seen it with composer John Williams conducting the score live; he’s seen it in Germany, with his role dubbed by an actor who stepped on all his punchlines; he’s watched it at home with his wife, actress Bianca Hunter (who always starts crying before he does); he’s taken his son at to an outdoor screening at Brooklyn Bridge Park; and when the movie returns to theaters courtesy of Fathom Events on Sept. 17 and 20, he plans on taking his stepsons. “I know everybody’s seen it a million times, but it’s different when you see it in the theater with other people, and they’re all losing it too,” MacNaughton tells Yahoo Movies of the emotional film, about a lost alien who brings a family together.
MacNaughton left acting in his 30s and has been happily employed by the U.S. Postal Service for 15 years. But just as the 1982 film has remained a part of pop culture (as an obvious inspiration for Netflix hit Stranger Things, for example), it has always remained a part of his life. At 14, the actor won the coveted role of Michael, a teenager struggling for independence while caring for his younger siblings Elliott (Henry Thomas, 10) and Gertie (Drew Barrymore, 6), in a memorable series of auditions, one of which consisted of a Dungeons and Dragons game at Harrison Ford’s house.
Spielberg shot the film chronologically so that the actors’ real-life bonding, both with each other and the incredibly lifelike alien (whose operators were kept hidden from the children to further the illusion), was captured on film. The set was a place of compassion and creative freedom, where MacNaughton could improvise a line in Yoda’s voice (actually Thomas’ idea, inspired by a Weird Al song) and E.T. “talked” to Barrymore when the cameras weren’t rolling, because the puppeteers knew he was real to her.
When he wasn’t filming, MacNaughton attended school with Thomas, Barrymore, and Matthew DeMerritt, an 11-year-old boy born without legs who did E.T.’s stunts (including the famous drunk scene) inside a rubber costume. By the time they shot the harrowing third-act scenes of E.T.’s death and resurrection, the cast and crew were genuinely devastated that their time together was ending.
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Robert MacNaughton today (Photo: Robert MacNaughton)
And yet, in a way, it never did end. MacNaughton has stayed in touch with his E.T. family (he recently ribbed Thomas about his tear-filled audition video going viral). In a strange twist of fate, the film brought him and his wife together — with an assist from Drew Barrymore — decades later.
In a wide-ranging interview, MacNaughton spoke with Yahoo Movies about the once-in-a-lifetime experience of making E.T., returning to his high school with the nickname “penis breath,” and deciding to leave show business — though he says he’d make an exception for Stranger Things.
E.T. is the rare movie that has never gone away. It’s remained very present in pop culture for the past 35 years. Yeah, I can’t believe it. It’s been on Netflix for like a year now, and I attribute that to Stranger Things. My wife and I watched Stranger Things, and it was like, “Wait a minute — that’s straight out of E.T.!” And they’re playing Dungeons and Dragons! It was funny because Dungeons and Dragons was even in the audition process [for E.T.]. One of the auditions was at Harrison Ford’s house because he and Melissa Mathison, who wrote the script, were together, and his kids Ben and Willard played Dungeons and Dragons. So one of the auditions was at Harrison Ford’s house with all of us playing Dungeons and Dragons. So it was always a part of the whole, of the script, an integral part.
In fact, the last scene in the movie wasn’t supposed to be the scene that ends up in the movie. The last scene was going to be all of us playing Dungeons and Dragons again, except this time, Elliot’s the dungeon master. Because he was the one that found ET, he sort of got in with the group. And so that was supposed to be the final scene, it was in the script and everything, and then they would pan up to the roof and you’d see the communicator and it’s still working — in other words, Elliot is still in touch with E.T.. But after they did the score, the music, and they saw what they had with the spaceship taking off and everything [laughs] — how can you follow that? I mean, it was a wise choice.
But it was funny because the script was top-secret so [the producers] sent just a few pages of the script to the creator of Dungeons and Dragons. And he said, I absolutely will not allow the name D&D to be used because they’re gambling on the game. I guess he misunderstood; there was a script note that we had money for pizza on the table, and he thought we were gambling on Dungeons and Dragons. [laughs] So I think that was kind of a costly mistake. He could have had all that high-end E.T. marketing.
Did you already know how to play D&D or did you learn for the film? Oh yeah, that was partly what got me the role. Because they didn’t show anybody the script, and I missed all the preliminary auditions. I just lucked out because I had auditioned for another movie called The Entity with Barbara Hershey, and the casting director for that, she had seen a play I did in New York, and so she flew me out there for the audition. And it fell through; I didn’t get the part. So she said, you know what, I feel bad because you came all this way to L.A., so I’ll make a call. I hear they’re casting something over at Spielberg’s and I’m not casting it, but I’ll call [E.T. casting director] Mike Fenton and see if I can get you in. So I lucked out.
My first audition was just a meeting with Steven, and it was on the day that President Reagan was shot. I’ll never forget, it was really crazy that morning, because I’m talking to Steven — who was my idol — and people are running in saying, “James Brady just died!” and all this stuff. But one of the things he asked me was, “What do you like to do?” I said, “Well, I ride bikes a lot.” He goes, “Yeah, that’s in the movie.” And I said, “I play Dungeons and Dragons.” And he goes, “That’s in the movie too.” [laughs] So it was just I said all the right things, I guess.
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Robert MacNaughton, Henry Thomas, and Drew Barrymore in ‘E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial,’ 1982 (Photo: Everett Collection)
Henry Thomas’ audition tape was posted online a couple years ago and went viral. Yeah, he wasn’t real happy about that. [laughs] I’ve stayed friends with Henry all through the years. He’s the person I was closest to on the set. I talked to him yesterday, in fact. My wife Bianca has been the go-between; she’s the one who contacted everyone about Carlo Rambaldi, the guy who created the mechanical E.T., his daughter is having a 35th anniversary memoriam for her father, and so she wanted us to record little videos for his memorial, so my wife contacted Peter Coyote and Henry. Drew’s the only one we’re sort of out of contact with.
So yeah, Henry Thomas wasn’t real happy with the video. Because you know, it was an audition and you don’t expect your auditions to be public. I told Henry, “Really, everybody loves that video because of Mike Fenton’s acting.” He’s the guy reading the other lines off camera. [laughs]
I never thought about how strange it would be to see some lost thing from your childhood like that, all of a sudden become public. I mean, I thought it was great. He really bought into it, you could tell he was really heartfelt. He’s just a real genuine person.
That’s awesome that you’re still in touch. It’s funny because now one of my stepkids is named Henry. I mean, I had nothing to do with it. So when we’re in the park or something, I think people think I named him after him.
I want to talk about the very unusual process of shooting this film, which I understand was filmed chronologically? All of the interiors, pretty much, they did chronologically. The scenes where we say goodbye were filmed toward the end.
And there was a fair amount of improvisation? Yes. For one thing Melissa, the writer of the script, was on the set every day, which is rare for movies. Usually they don’t let the writer anywhere near the set. [laughs] But she was a really big part of E.T. and the heart of E.T., and because she was always there and she was always asking us for ideas, we all felt perfectly enabled to come up with different lines that might be saying the same thing but felt more natural to us. And Steven also encouraged a lot of that. Everybody could sort of chime in. It was Henry’s idea that I use the Yoda voice when I say “You have absolute power.” Because we used to listen to this show Dr. Demento that played novelty songs, and at that time ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic had a song called “Yoda” that was like the Kinks song “Lola.” And so I used to play that for Henry and I used to do a Yoda impression, just between us. But then when we were doing the movie he said, “’You have absolute power’ sounds like something Yoda would say.”
There’s also a scene where you walk into a room and you’re singing “Accidents Will Happen” By Elvis Costello. [pause] Yes. Now that was Melissa all the way. Because on the audition at Harrison’s house when I first got there, they were listening to the Elvis Costello album Trust. It’s funny because I’ve seen him probably about 15 times in concert, and I’ve loved all his music all through the years. But at that time I wasn’t familiar with his music. I was 14, but the year I was 13 I did like five plays and a bunch of TV movies. So I was always working from the time I was about 12, and I was just devoted to the stage. So the only music I knew was like, showtunes. [laughs] So I didn’t know Elvis Costello at all. I knew who he was but I didn’t know his music. They gave me a tape like, the night before with the song.
Elvis Costello had a book signing recently, and my wife arranged for me to meet him beforehand. And the first thing I did was apologize. [laughs] “I’m so sorry, I butchered the song, it’s a great song, I can’t sing and I wasn’t real familiar with the song!” But I told him how big of fans Melissa and Harrison were, and to a lesser extent Steven, because he wasn’t real into popular music either. He said, “Yeah, I didn’t think Steven was a fan.” [laughs] But I said, “But he was there and he was listening to it, so he obviously didn’t hate it!” But yeah, that’s my only regret, is that I wish I would have done it kind of better.
Tell me about the first time you saw the E.T. puppet. That was crazy because it could basically do everything you see it do in the movie. It was really a combination of Carlo Rambaldi being a genius — you know, he designed the mechanical alien for Alien, he did the sandworms in Dune, and also he did the Close Encounters aliens. Anyway, he was really a genius, but [the effects team] really worked hard. I mean, E.T. was one-tenth of the budget. The budget of the movie was $11 million and E.T.’s budget was one-and-a-half million dollars. Anyway, so it could basically do everything you see it do in the movie: his face could react, he had like 85 muscles in his face he could move, his eyes looked exactly the same.
But they kept it secret from me. We had a week of rehearsal, and then about two weeks on the soundstage before I had a scene with E.T. So the first time I saw him was when I see him in the movie.
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Robert MacNaughton and Henry Thomas in ‘E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial,’ 1982 (Photo: Everett Collection)
They used that shot? It’s basically that shot — I mean, they had to set it all up and everything — but that was the first time I had seen him. Henry had already done scenes with E.T., so I was sort of pumping him for information, like, “What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it do? “Because the only thing I had seen was the bicycle-basket E.T., because the first week of filming was the bicycle scenes and the scenes around the neighborhood. I don’t think that was an accurate representation of what E.T. could look like, that was just sort of a mock-up E.T.
So when I first see it, it was incredible. I’d never seen anything like it. I mean, you say “puppet,” but puppet sounds so basic compared to what it could do. They used to pretend with Drew, because she believed he was real and she would have conversations with it. Sometimes when it wasn’t filming, the guys that operated it would actually make it react to what she was saying [laughs] just to confuse her even further. But yeah, it was not CGI or anything added afterwards. When I think of E.T. I think of Carlo, because he was kind of like Geppetto — he was such a kind man, he was a Sicilian guy and he was very expressive, and would talk about everything he wanted E.T. to do. And then I think of Caprice [Rothe] who’s a professional mime, and she did the hands. She was usually kind of perched under the mechanical wires and reaching her hands up and expressing his emotions with her hands. And then Steven, he always read all of E.T.’s dialogue. So some of the lines I still hear Steven’s voice when I watch the movie.
The character moves around the set so naturally in the film, but there must have been all kinds of crazy accommodations for the puppeteers, right? When he moves around, primarily there was a different set-up: a walking costume. And that was really just a kid named Matthew DeMeritt. He was our age, he was 12, and we went to school with him, but he was born without legs. But he didn’t like to use the prosthetic legs. He would get around on his hands, and he had a skateboard he would get around on. So E.T., the way he waddles, is totally because of Matthew, because that’s the way he walks on his hands.
So when he was interacting with you or the other kids, you had Caprice doing the hands and the animatronics people pressing buttons? Yeah, it was hydraulics, and there was a team in the other room that we couldn’t see. They had a video camera on E.T. So they were doing it in another room, and we just had E.T. set up with all the wires leading to another room. I think it was 10 or 12 guys operating it in another room. And then Caprice would be sort of under it. So I felt so bad for her during the scenes where he’s eating or drinking the beer. She would get beer poured all over her head, or potato salad.
So whenever it’s one place, like in the closet, it was a really elaborate set-up. But then when he had to move, it was a really realistic costume, but the face would be limited to only a few movements. The face could still move but it wasn’t like the whole set-up.
Even when I was re-watching the film yesterday, I had a lot of trouble getting through the scenes where E.T.’s dying. Just like I did when I was a kid, I find them extremely stressful. Were they stressful for you to shoot? Yeah. That was hard because it was exactly what you see in the movie: they sort of took us out of our comfort zone with covering the house in the plastic. And all the doctors were real — that’s something I don’t think Steven gets enough credit for. The entire team of doctors that was working on E.T. were real emergency room doctors and various specialists from around California, and that was entirely improvised. He just wanted them to do it like a real code blue situation.
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Henry Thomas and Robert MacNaughton in ‘E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial,’ 1982 (Photo: Everett Collection)
That’s probably one of the reasons that scene is so hard to watch, too — it really feels like you’re sitting in the ER. Especially with Drew. For her it was chaotic and she didn’t understand what was going on. The mood around the set was somber. There was not a lot of joking around when ET was dying. And plus, it was kind of close to the end of filming, and it was a great working environment and everybody knew that was going to come to a close. and nobody wanted it to end. So there was that too. The last week of filming was up in Crescent City in the redwoods — all the outdoor scenes in the redwoods — and so it was kind of like, this is the last stuff we’re doing in the studio. And so there was a feeling of regret and sadness. I mean, it’s very harsh, those scenes.
I’m serious, I still have trouble watching them. Especially as a mom now, I just want to swoop in and take Drew and Henry away, because they look like they’re in so much pain! Dee [Wallace, who played Mary the mother] really did a good job of comforting Drew, and it comes across in the movie. Because Dee was a mom too, in real life, and she really took Drew, watched out for her. It was hard, because she really didn’t know what was going on. And to her, E.T. was real. To us, a lesser extent. But the mood was really somber. Henry is brilliant in that scene where he’s saying goodbye to him; that’s the one that gets me every time. When he’s talking about the hollow feeling he has, “I don’t know how to feel anymore” — that’s the part where I just lose it. My wife loses it when E.T.’s on the floor in the bathroom and he’s reaching up at Mary and she’s just panicking. I joke sometimes with my wife that of all the toys, they never had a sick E.T. toy, that white E.T.
It’s so scary when you first see him like that! And you’re the one who finds him. Yeah, according to my wife, the movie’s all about me. [laughs] I’m the hero that saves him. She has her own theory of E.T. because she was a fan — in fact, that’s how we met. My wife and I met on a blind date set up by Drew’s mother a long time ago. And then we both had separate lives, other relationships, and then we found each other about seven years ago on Facebook. And we’re married.
So you first met after E.T. came out? We met back in 1985. I was doing a play in New York, and she had watched the movie and she was friends with Drew. And she had wanted to meet me a few years earlier, but Drew’s mom said, “No, you’re too young.” I think I was 16 and she was 13? Then I was doing a play in Central Park with Kevin Kline a few years later, I was 18 and she was 15. So she asked Drew’s mom, “Can you ask Robert’s mom for his number?” And so we talked on the phone and went out on a blind date. But it was just one date and then we didn’t see each other. There was the age difference, and I lived in California, and she lived in New York. So then we didn’t see each other again. [laughs] And then I got a message on Facebook. And we’re married.
That’s a great story. What was it like for you after E.T.? You must have suddenly been very recognizable. I was actually filming I Am the Cheese when it came out, so I was in a real small place, Barre, Vermont. I was reading about people lining up to see it but I wasn’t really exposed to the craziness when it initially came out. So then a few months later, I had to go back to high school. Which was crazy. Because I had been [to high school] one year before that, and I was sort of nondescript, I flew under the radar. But then of course, all of a sudden I was invited to all the football parties and everything. [laughs] Plus I got to be “penis breath” in high school. But I really wasn’t there that much because I was still working a lot.
You stepped away from acting for a while and you’re getting back into it — is that accurate? Not really. I was pursuing it in Los Angeles till I was about 30, and I found I’d kind of lost the joy for acting. I was auditioning for things I didn’t really want to do even if I got the part, just to keep my agent happy. I was really not happy.— I was happy when I was doing theater, but it was infrequent. And so I visited Arizona during that time, and I just liked the pace and I liked it better than where I was living in California. So I decided I wanted to move there. And then I tried still going back for auditions and everything, and that didn’t work. It was too much, driving from Arizona to Los Angeles twice a week. So then I had to get a real job [laughs] and I started working for the postal service. I’ve worked for them since 1995. And I was able to get a transfer to the New York area when I married my wife.
So then what happened was, I didn’t really plan on getting back into acting, but my wife is an actress and she had the lead in a mob movie called Laugh Killer Laugh. And the director, Kamal Ahmed, asked if I wanted to work on the movie. He had a part for me but it was working one day, just a few scenes. And it was kind of a funny part and I said ok; he was a friend and I did it for no money. I didn’t plan on getting back into acting. In fact it was the first time I picked up a script in 25 years. So I just did it sort of as a one-off. And then while I was doing that, this guy who was doing a horror movie asked if I wanted to do that. And I went, “Yeah, I never was in a horror movie!” [laughs] So I did that. But it wasn’t any kind of planned comeback or anything.
So if the Stranger Things producers called and wanted you to show up in Season 3, what would you say? Of course I’d say yes! I think they’re brilliant. It’s just that I’m not really keen on getting back into auditioning every day and putting myself out there. That’s the part I’m not interested in resuming.
Has anyone ever talked to you about doing an E.T. sequel or reboot? There was talk of a sequel back around that time. They wrote a treatment for it. Henry Thomas had seen it and said he wasn’t real thrilled with it. I had never seen it until recently it surfaced on the internet, and I read it and kind of saw what he meant. I mean, the treatment was written by Melissa and Steven, and I’m sure it would have been good if they’d written the whole script. But I think Steven wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having to do a sequel. And I’m glad he wasn’t. I mean, for personal, selfish reasons, I would have liked to have gotten the work, but I think it would have cheapened the original. And I don’t know, I think a reboot would never happen. I think he wouldn’t allow that. That’s like his baby. [laughs] It’s such a personal story for him.
At this time when everything seems to have a sequel, E.T. being a stand-alone movie makes it feel special. It keeps it pure. And I mean, the marketing and everything was not something [Steven] was thrilled with doing either. He had said to us on the set that he wasn’t planning on having E.T. toys everywhere. But I think, I don’t know for sure, that was something that he had to concede in order to not do the sequel.
Tickets for the September screenings of E.T. are available at Fathom Events.
Henry Thomas remembers teary ‘E.T.’ audition, 7-year-old pro Drew Barrymore:
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ameliacandco · 7 years
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A toast to new beginnings...
If I could pick and chose the moments to stretch out, minutes I could turn into hours, it would absolutely be the beginning of things. Just the beginning, not even the dead-center moment of whatever it was you were excited about in the beginning, just the beginning. That sweet, sweet second where the thing you have been looking forward to for so long meets the start of it actually happening. Vacations. Cake. Sex. Love. Careers. All of it... the beginning is the absolute best part. 
Not to say the rest of it isn't good. In fact, the rest of it can be downright wonderful. But it's a grounded, rumbly, deep kind of happiness that you have to sit very still to feel. It's depth is what makes it so profound, but also harder to notice. But in the beginning, it's sharp and arced and it pushes through everything else and it's not just noticeable, it's painfully obvious. Maybe I'm just into theatrics and cheap thrills. Or maybe I just like the exquisite feeling of knowing the best is yet to come. I can't think of anything more delicious then realizing that in the midst of incredible happiness, something even better is about to happen. 
In March, The 'Co website got a long overdue makeover. In my haste to get on with things already, I obliterated our previous website before I had the thought to pull our blog posts from them. Basically, five years worth of witty commentary from yours truly has now gone to cyber heaven, or wherever blog posts go to die. Thankfully, some of my more involved posts I had the good sense to write on my desktop before publishing, and with the help of a few interweb hacks, I was able to recuperate some other posts as well. But still, over 90% of our posts are nevermore. 
That was three months ago, and I've found lots of projects to work on other than actually getting our posts up again. Finally, I decided that rather drag the past into the present with me by trying to regurgitate it all with more interweb hacks and voodoo magic, I would just start over with a clean slate. Sure, some of the saved posts will be coming along with me, but not without a overhaul with a heavily lashed critical eye. 
And because this is a new beginning, and a post about new beginnings, it deserves something more to hit you right in the feels. And boy, get ready to feel all the feels. 
Some of you know about our sweet hair and makeup artist, Melissa F. More than two years ago, she experienced any happily married woman's worst nightmare. As weird as this is going to sound, if anyone one was an example of How To Widow, it was Melissa. She did the work, and yes, it's a lot of work to recover from a tragedy of that magnitude. She read and she prayed and she chanted. She saw healers and Jesus and lit candles and joined groups. She danced and she cried and blew off anything that didn't serve her healing. And then, one Tuesday..."her heart started to beat again."
Now listen up, because this is important: here at the offices of The 'Co, we see all of our artists schedules. This is how we know when they are available and when they aren't. So, when her boyfriend at the time was planning to propose, he emailed me and asked if she was booked on the date he had in mind. Then shit got real-real. The ring was gorgeous. He's such a great guy. She is so in love with him. I could barely look at Melissa for the two months in between the time I knew he was going to propose and the time he actually did, I was so, so excited and happy for her! I literally could not even stand it! 
After some scheming and heart pounding and squealing and basically just being a girl about the whole thing, we got to work. Israel, the soon to be fiancé, wanted to pop the question out at the gorgeous Lake Las Vegas. Not wanting to exclude his or Melissa's family, but still wanting to keep the proposal intimate, we came up with a plan that worked beautifully. The proposal would just be the two of them, followed by his and her family joining them at the proposal site, champagne toast, family and engagement photos, an intimate dinner for the ten of them, and then another surprise- a pop-up engagement party with all the friends and family! And, since his family was flying in from the East Coast and her family was driving up from SoCal, it was efficient too... in the space of four hours, Melissa was proposed to, had engagement photos, and had an engagement party. When I'm not feeling all misty-eyed about the thing, I can't help but marvel at the efficiency of it all. 
To really get in the mood for the story of how he asked, kindly locate the song "Kissing You" from Romeo & Juliet, and have it playing in the background before reading on... I'll wait...
With the help of Ashley over at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas, we choose their stunning old-world chapel for the proposal site. We also fed Melissa a story about how the venue was doing a demo reel showcasing the property, and that they wanted to have their professional wedding partners come in and speak on their respective parts of the wedding business. This way, we had an excuse to make sure she wore a dress and did her hair and makeup lavishly for the cameras. Brilliant, right? 
Tucked into the candle-lit chapel was Israel, standing up at the altar, and the superb Norina Kaye, camera at the ready to capture all that was about to happen. I waited at the chapel doors while Ashley walked Melissa to the "interview site", and while she fiddled with the "lock" on the door I pressed play (and prayed my phone reached the bluetooth speaker in the chapel) and suddenly the song swelled out and filled the space right as we opened the big, wooden arch doors. 
For as long as I live and breathe, I will never forget that moment. Her head turned slowly to me and she blinked once. She didn't budge. I'm not even sure she drew a breath. For what seemed like ages, Melissa just stood very, very still, and stared at me. She was suddenly facing a wedding chapel, an aisle lined with candles, a romantic serenade filling the space, and at the top of the altar with his back to the door, Israel. I gave her the awkward, neck gesture that people use when they want to say "well, go on then" but without actually having to say it. Twice. And then she stepped forward, and we closed the doors behind her. 
And if I could have stretched this moment out for them, this dreamy beginning, made it just a little longer, the sweetest part of the whole thing, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
  Thank You...
Norina Kaye for a) being as lovely as you are gorgeous b) driving halfway to the ocean to get this unbelievable moment caught on camera and c) being such a photo-taking-ninja-bad ass. But, most importantly, thank you for being a friend. Norina Kaye Photography
Ashley Arnal... for keeping your cool when I was a frantic, sweaty, mess. For your beautiful chapel and generosity. For being an involved, behind the scenes stud.  We literally could not have pulled this off without you. Hilton Lake Las Vegas Weddings
Brittney Belanger... for the sweet and stunning cake that made the pop-up engagement party feel so official. Mad Batter Cafe
Daileny S... for being a great co-conspirator, a cooler-downer when I was getting all weird and anxious, and the best teammate a girl could ask for. 
Courtney Everard... for telling me it was going to be beautiful when I was second guessing myself and worried that I'd find a way to screw it all up. And for the timeline template.
Israel... for Operation #wifemelissaup. For letting me be the hyper, bossy, clip-board carrying, over-zealous planning, checklist making, quasi nut job that I know I can be. In all truth, you letting me part of this incredible moment was such a gift, I won't ever be able to thank you enough.
and to Melissa... who showed us all that love is for real, Jesus knows what's up, and mountains can be moved. I love you. 
xoxo
Amelia C
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