During my teaching days, sophomore literature often fell on my plate of duties. One topic I enjoyed teaching during the short story unit was local color, all of the interesting things a reader can learn about culture, geography, history and so forth by paying attention -- not just to the characters and the story line -- but to all of the background material as well.
Local color occurs to me as I learn more about our new home. Some examples include:
Horses - Lots of folks out here have them. In fact, from the Jurgen house windows, we can see at least four neighbors who own horses. Even now, sitting in their second-story office and just looking to my right, I can see at least seven horses in the corral across the street. I have no desire to ever own a horse, but they sure are pretty to watch!
From our building site, we can see horses both behind us and in front of us. Most people in our neighborhood keep them simply as hobbies and for casual riding it seems. However, being an athlete in the rodeo is big for high schoolers; the state finals were held just last week.
Dogs - Unlike horses, I'm quite used to folks having dogs. What we are not accustomed to is the general consensus that letting them run loose is o.k. It is common to have a variety of dogs parade through the yard, down the street or even chase the car. One household nearby has three dogs (including a three-legged one) and they chase every moving vehicle within a quarter mile.
All of the canines I've encountered (save one), have been friendly. The only unfriendly one lives catercorner to our building site. I just figure if he ever bites me on the public road -- I will have granite counter tops after all! :-)
Local color occurs to me as I learn more about our new home. Some examples include:
Horses - Lots of folks out here have them. In fact, from the Jurgen house windows, we can see at least four neighbors who own horses. Even now, sitting in their second-story office and just looking to my right, I can see at least seven horses in the corral across the street. I have no desire to ever own a horse, but they sure are pretty to watch!
From our building site, we can see horses both behind us and in front of us. Most people in our neighborhood keep them simply as hobbies and for casual riding it seems. However, being an athlete in the rodeo is big for high schoolers; the state finals were held just last week.
Dogs - Unlike horses, I'm quite used to folks having dogs. What we are not accustomed to is the general consensus that letting them run loose is o.k. It is common to have a variety of dogs parade through the yard, down the street or even chase the car. One household nearby has three dogs (including a three-legged one) and they chase every moving vehicle within a quarter mile.
All of the canines I've encountered (save one), have been friendly. The only unfriendly one lives catercorner to our building site. I just figure if he ever bites me on the public road -- I will have granite counter tops after all! :-)
1 comment:
I find pleasure in your humor as usual. Raven would love your neighborhood with all the horses. It is a dream of hers to own one.
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