2008
guest post!
maura @ 10:11 pm
So I’m tired + have a ton to do tonight, as usual, and I wasn’t planning to blag because I’m saving it all up for NaBloPoMo. BUT, Gus went on a field trip at school today and lately the homework on field trip days is to tell a grown up what you saw and did and have the grown up write it in your writing notebook. Except that Gus forgot his writing notebook so he convinced me to type it up and print it out for him. And this is what he said:
“Castle Clinton was surrounded by water, except for the wooden planks that let it go to New York City. It was used for 4 different things. First it was used for war (there were 28 artillery cannons that aimed out of the windows).* Then it was used for an immigration center. Then it was used for an opera house. And then it was an aquarium. It still is all 4 of those things but it doesn’t look exactly like what it should look like. It had a little chunk of everything that was in it before it was changed to how it is nowadays. Now there is one cannon, one tank of fish, one book to sign your name in.”**
* I should note that here he paused and said, “Mommy, what are those curved lines that go around words?” to request parentheses.
** He’s talking about the register that immigrants had to sign, I think.
“It was built in 18-something. I don’t exactly remember when it was built. But it was built in 1820-something. It also has thick walls. When it was first built it had walls that were 8 feet thick. They were that thick to protect itself from enemies. They were having it for the battle of 1820.*** It’s hard to believe this part but the water that used to be surrounding it is now land that has benches, trees, and other things that you should normally see around your neighborhood.”
*** = War of 1812. But he was close!
“To get there was a long trip. We took the F train to the R train to the island it’s on, and then after we were done going to the island we took the Staten Island ferry back and forth, but when we were in the terminal waiting for the ferry to get back we found a woman who was playing music on a violin and we sat there for I don’t remember how long but it seemed like a half an hour. We kept on asking her to do more songs until M [his teacher] said that the boat was here. We could see our school from the Staten Island ferry ride.**** It was pretty cold so I spent most of the time sitting down on the outside or sitting down on the inside. The ride was pretty fun and I saw lots of different boats. It was a whole day trip, if you can imagine how long it would take.”
**** I’m not sure that this is true. But they could probably see close to their school, at least.
“On the outside of Castle Clinton it looked like a semi-circle. The view that we had of it looked like it was a whole circle but it actually was a semi-circle. I had a good time.”
3 comments on “guest post!”
Sure, you sign your name in the book, like an immigrant! I totally got that w/o the footnote. Did you see “Hitch?” Very cute movie. They had that scene at Ellis Island, there was definitely a signup book under glass.
Gus needs his own blog! But the typing…they don’t even teach it! My brother never learned because they said “everything is on the computer.” Well, duh, including the keyboard which is…what, JUST like a typewriter, layout-wise!? Hell in a handbasket.
I love “little chunk of everything.” So true.
Emily, that is a genius idea. Yay for guest posts!
Anne, typing, yes!!! Gus is always frustrated when he has to type something, because of course it makes no sense to him that the keys are not in alphabetical order. Then we explain the origins of the manual typewriter and he looks at us with one of those, “oh, my pathetic paleolithic parents” gazes.
awesome field trip Gus. Hope this won’t be the last guest post. Maybe that’s how you get through next month?