Good News

Comparison paper about before and during
By Tressa

I guess this is to compare my thoughts, and attitudes about coming here now to how I felt about it when I first started. When I first started here at ALC I felt a little scared, and a little nervous, but the folks up here made me feel real welcome. I have been out of school for about twenty-two years, yea I’m an old critter, but that’s o.k. Because most of us up here are too (no offense)
I guess my worst fear was that I was not smart enough or that everyone would thank I was just plain stupid. Good News !!I’m not that dumb after all, and these good ole folks up here helped me to see and believe that. Before I came to ALC the thought of going off to college was very intimidating, but not now I’m actually a little excited to go.
The people up here are the best; I mean it they really are. I can honestly say that I will miss these fine folks; they have helped prepare us for another step in our lives. I know that we would not have been ready for this if it had not been for this program and it’s caring people.
So I guess in conclusion to my little comparison essay, I would have to say THANK YOU ALC for all your help and good works.

Country or City Life

Country vs City Living
I really have no experience at all about living in the city, but I have had the liberty of visiting. A few years ago my best friend Georgie and I went to Cincinnati, Ohio to stay a week with my aunt Susie. Now I have lived in the country all my life, well actually it was more like the woods. My dad built our house right on the edge of the woods, so I guess it’s safe to say I lived in the woods. There was not a neighbor in my back yard or within nine feet from our house. Where my aunt lived right down town you could not stand between her house and the neighbor’s house with your arms outstretched without touching either house. Now I know that I’m just a simply country girl, but come on Aunt, this was just a little close for comfort. We went up there on Sunday and we were supposed to come home the following Sunday. Oh Lord, I got so homesick it was pitiful. About Wednesday I wanted to come home. I know that Ohio is not that far from Kentucky, but to me it was so different. Now when I am at home and somebody goes up or down the road, you know these people and you wave or holler or ask them to “get out and come in for a spell”. You don’t do that where Susie lived. We could be setting out on the front porch of my aunt's house and see some of the rag about muffins that go by and brother you don’t want to wave, much less ask them to come in and set a spell. Across the street where Susie lived there was this huge house and it was divided into to houses, someone lived in one side and some other family lived in the other side. The old man that lived alone in one side of this house had died, and no one knew it for three days. Now I don’t know about you but to me that is very, very sad. My aunt said that she didn’t even know this man. I know that when you live in a God forsaken place like that, most of the time you don’t want to know most of your neighbors, but an innocent old man that had no body else; it looks to me like you could manage to say hi or, how are you today?So in conclusion to my little paper I would like to say that to me there is not much of a comparison between living in the city to the country. I would take my simple, slow, contented life of country living anytime to living in the city... thank you very much.
By Tressa

A Time to Remember

I can remember my very first camping trip for two reasons, it was my first camping trip and my sixth birthday. Mom had bought me one of those little stuffed poodle dogs with the radio in its stomach. My mom took my brother, two uncles, two cousins, her youngest sister, and me, which were around my age ranging from six to eleven years old. We had watched something on television about someone camping and it looked like fun. Mom got everyone of us kids together and put us in her 1976 Nova, now this car was hardly big enough for all of our gear and us, but we managed. Mom's sister, Leola sat in front with my little brother who was three at the time in her lap. In the middle of them set on the “hump” was my youngest uncle, Bruce. In the back seat scrunched up together were my two cousins, my older uncle and myself. In the trunk were our food, pillows and blankets.
Now this was not planned out, so we had no tents, sleeping bags, Coleman stoves, or none of those fancy gadgets like we have now, but we thought we were really doing something special. So we called our campout “cowboy camping.” Well that’s about what it amounted up to.
So we get to our campsite over at the Saltpeter Cave in one of those big fields. Mom builds us up a fire to roast hotdogs. We had a couple jugs of Kool-aid so we were really styling. After we ate, we played tag and hide and seek, we ran across the old swinging bridge. Then at bedtime we all got our pillow and our blanket out of the trunk and curled up on the cold hard ground for our cowboy campout under the stars.
I don’t remember what time I woke up, I just remember waking up to the thunder and lightning and the hard, hard rain. We grabbed our pillow and our blankets and we ran all behind Mom, me holding to my uncle’s hand. We got to the old pavilion. We made our new beds on top of the picnic tables most blankets were wet. Richard Mullins, who lived over there and gave tours through the cave at the time brought us dry blankets God Bless his heart.
We were all settled in going to sleep again when the rain came down harder, the lightning brighter, the thunder came louder and all of us kids more scared. The pavilion was kind of dug out with about a foot high rock wall around it the back wall was rock and up against the hill, well the rain came in so fast and hard it became standing water in our little sanctuary. We got up to gather up our stuff our shoes and socks knee deep in water my little stuffed poodle radio floating on top of the water. That is it enough was enough so we packed up Mom's Nova and set out for home. Only this time we didn’t pack up so neatly. My cousins and I sat in the trunk and we held the lid up to keep it from conking us on the head. We were poised up on all those wet blankets, pillows, and a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread.