A little about Miss Daneisha Rodgers

The interview with Ms. Rodgers was certainly a memorable one. The responses to the questions kindly provided by our professor where great but during our interview I was treated with a series of comedic replies, mildly vulgar language, and satirical answers which of course where followed by real responses. She is clearly very easy to talk to and very social. It’s obvious that she has many friends and I enjoyed being partnered up with her.

                Daneisha is from a moderately large family from Ventura. Growing up she relocated around a variety of places then moved back to Ventura County when she got older. When asked what three words describes her best she stated, “strong-willed, funny, and artistic.” She is her own role model but she stated she does not hope she is someone else’s. She claims she requires “more growth” which is where I respectfully disagree. The reason for my disaccord is due to the fact that she is the first in her family to go to college in addition to being a great writer.  

                In five years, Rodgers is going to be 26 where she sees herself with a career in radiology with absolutely no children. She plans on getting that certificate at OC with her motto, “Get that done.”  She isn’t completely infatuated with the Oxnard College and she finds it very different from the institute where she studied before. I agree with her when she replied that, “The cafeteria needs to be open later and I get hungry at night,” when I asked if there is an improvement that the college requires. She also wasn’t too pleased with the printing price for black and white prints.

                It was a great experience to interview Daneisha and I hope for the best in her career and her life.  

Not a Mundane Father

We had a good father figure growing up, my two brothers and I, a strict, hardworking, caring father. I loved him to death but he was not a great father. He was only a good one. My father loved us and we loved him but there where things about him that I felt should be different. His personality and behavior completely influenced the current state of our family’s unity.

            My dad was a funny, charismatic guy cracking jokes in public; usually at the expense of any kind of class that our family had. Never the less, he was liked and greeted with a smile everywhere he went for a second visit. At church, fast food places, stores, he was recognized and welcomed. He had many friends and was a man that one could speak to very easily. As a Christian family we attended church. There, the brothers and sisters of our congregation cared for us and generally asked about the status of our faith but my father’s was never questioned.  He wasn’t a pillar holding up our church but he was much respected. He was known for being hilarious, the life of our social circle at church and for always being in a good mood. At home he was like that as well but not nearly as much as when we were out. Things were different at home.

My siblings and I respected our father but there was no denying that we feared him as well, my mother included. My father would depart to his job where he was an electrician and came home early in the evenings. When he would return from work my brothers and I would see his green truck pulling into our driveway and a certain feeling entered our mind. Not exactly a fear of physical pain but one of complete respect mixed with the fear of getting belt whipped or a long lasting word lashing. Personally, to me, it gave me a strange, unusual feeling to my stomach, like someone grabbed my stomach with their big hands and just gently tilted it to the side. It’s a feeling difficult to explain, clearly, but my siblings and my mother felt a similar activity in their stomachs.s This feeling was greatly augmented on the days we had misbehaved, according to my mom, but even when we had done nothing wrong that green truck pulling in immediately adjusted our attitude an our behavior.

            At this point it is needless to say that we were physically castigated. If to my father our attitude or our behavior was negative enough he would make us get the belt he normally used to whip us with and he would do just that. Usually we had a long lecture prior to our inevitable “sintarasos” as they were referred to in our Hispanic family. The number of whips depended on his scale of how many we deserved. Our father never laid a finger on my mother but I guess he didn’t have to. Contrary to any nearby third party perspective, my father was always right and he would raise the volume of his voice and extend any argument until that was clear. I never entirely understood why but my mom was always under his submission and she did what he said and that was final. Any field trips, sleepovers, or outing requests from me or my brothers were followed up with a, “Preguntale a tu papa,” which is Spanish for, “Ask your dad.”

            In the beginning of my twelfth year of life odd occurrences and began to happen in my house.  I would go to bed and my dad wasn’t home. The following morning I would wake up and my father wasn’t home. In other words there were times where I didn’t know if my dad came home or not. When I would ask my mom about it, she’d tell me that he was still working although her face told me she didn’t believe that all.

Month’s into my twelfth year, I would wake up for a drink late in the night and the sound of my parents screams and accusations of infidelity challenged the silence.  Other times from my room I could hear a faint prayer from my mother. It made me feel terrible knowing that my mom was in pain and that instead of sleeping she was weeping. An unpleasant feeling overcame me knowing that I was the son of an unhappy mother. I knew it wasn’t my fault but just the fact that I was her son made me feel responsible. It made me feel like it was up to me to do something. This feeling usually led me to getting up late at night and knocking on her room door and asking her if she was okay but she would tell me she’s fine and to return to sleep because I had school the next morning. Things went on like this then escalated significantly to literally being woken up by screams and witnessing my dad walkout and driving away.  Our family was unaccustomed to drama so incidents like were a big deal.

            Things only got worse until one day my father came home from work and the arguing erupted. It was a mundane event for our family at this point, although today the screaming was louder than usual. Gradually, I began to hear bangs and thuds coming from the hall. I walked in to the hall to the image of my mother crying at the entrance of her room, leaning her face and body on to the door frame crying, “No, I’m not going to give them to you!” as my dad angrily flipped the mattress and pulled out and threw cabinets and drawers. He aggressively yanked clothes off the closet bar demanding in a harsh tone, “Give me the keys!” Walking into the room I yelled over the ruckus my dad was making, “Dad, calm down you don’t have to get like this!” I then turned to my weeping mom, the room’s light reflected off her shining eyes and I told her a calmly as possible, “Mom, just give him the keys.”  They both seemed indifferent to my suggestions, and it wasn’t too long before my mom walked in the room past my dad and grabbed his set of keys from her makeup basket and headed for the door. My dad stopped her with his body at the room’s door frame.  My dad kept yelling, “Give me the keys!” “No, no, no, no I won’t!” she responded.

 I could never forget my mom’s face at that moment. The pain in her face as she struggled to get past my dad through the door frame was immensely unpleasant to me. Her cheeks shined with trails of tears as her face reflected sadness combined with an anger generated by the love for my father and her fear for him leaving the house and her not knowing where he was staying and what he was doing. The anguish in her face and her cries of pain as she punched and pushed to try to get through the door with his car keys made me feel so unimportant to myself. All my care for everything I found important was focused on her. My heart moved inches down from its natural area as I witnessed this socially unsound event in my own home.

The struggle at the room’s doorframe lasted about five seconds but to me it felt like a solid hour. As I was about to intervene my father let my mom threw and she hurriedly sped past me out the front door of our home. My dad followed her, but his face didn’t have the same anger as it did a moment ago. I was much calmer and like it was obvious that he just realized what he was doing at that moment as well as to the family. This new expression in my dad’s face did not worry me so I didn’t pursue my mom as well. I went to my room from their room which were separated by a wall, and sat on my bed and silently cried. Not an audible sound escaped my lips. Just a twelve year old human looking down to his room carpet producing tear after tear as he replayed his mother’s pain in his mind over and over again. He doesn't remember being sadder.

Moments later, some one, I can’t recall who, came to my room to tell me that my mom was leaving the gated community we lived in, on foot. Immediately, I ran out into the overcast day, I jumped on my brother Dino bike and peddled full speed towards the entrance of the community gates. My mom was walking fast on the side walk surrounding our community and my dad followed closely behind her. I could tell she continued to cry as I got closer to them. Then, out of nowhere my mom fainted. I jumped off my bike as soon as I got to my mom unconscious body.  The bike crashed somewhere and I ran and helped my dad pick my mom up. We carried her to our house and we waited for her to become conscious again and then my father left.

I don’t remember where my two siblings where that day, Ray was six years old he couldn’t have done much, but Carlos my seventeen year old brother wasn’t anywhere in my memory as I try to remember more about that event in my life. Much of the details of that event revolved around my mother and my mother only and it is difficult to remember any other details. I can’t remember what I wearing, what my room was looked like, what day of the week it was, or any other people involved but my mom’s face that day is unforgettable.

As a result of the events that took place when I was twelve years old my father moved out. Our parents are divorced and they are both seeing different people. Our family defiantly hasn't been the same without him. We are sad he is gone but we have way more breathing room than we used to to anything we'ed like. We no longer have that feeling inside of us and there is no green truck pulling in every day and no arguments every night. I like the way things are now but sometimes I dislike the fact that I enjoy my home a lot more than when my dad was there.

Entirely Worth it

                After the cow, I have a memory of my mother coming home from work, but this particular day, she was holding a bag with the words "Burger King" on it, along with her work supplies. She sets down her supplies on the kitchen floor and takes a wrapped item from the paper bag. She offers me a bite and I bite into a lifetime of unhealthy but delicious meals. I remember I particularly entangled myself with the taste made by the mixture of warm melted cheese, ketchup, juicy meat, and toasted bread. I was definitely hooked.  It shouldn’t have but it became a pretty large part of my life.

                It came to the point where it was one of my favorite activities. I was just looking forward to the next time my family and I were going to go out and eat, usually after church, after school, and on Sunday nights when the family didn’t have work or school. My dad was relatively strict and had a unique temper and that often drove me to not suggest any activities for the whole family on the way home from church, school, or a relative’s home. However, when I would suggest a fast food restaurant it usually consisted of Burger King, McDonalds, Carl’s Jr., or Wendy’s. It often led to long, boring lectures on how we weren’t economically able to go eat at fast food restaurant every time we were out of the house but, in my elementary mentality, it was entirely worth it.

                Yes the food was great, but that wasn’t the only reason why I was drawn to eat out with my family as a kid. I enjoyed the time we spent as a family. The fast food lobby became an outlet for us to bond as a family and simultaneously gaining a considerable amount of weight. Sometimes it was the only time of the week my whole family was together. Some days, it was just laughs, sometimes it was just a verbal behavioral scolding but fast food restaurants were our second home. I remember on one occasion we went to a McDonalds, and I was walking back with two trays with our food and I dropped the tray with my sandwich to the floor. They had a great time poking fun at me the whole meal but it a memory that I’ll never forget. It was a fun day that day, at my expense, but a fun day none the less. So did fast food restaurants influence my childhood? Yes, they definitely did.

                Due to complications, my father moved out and every time we get together with my brothers to hang out with him and socialize is…. you guessed it. Fast food places continue to be part of my life now that I’m actually employed at one at a local Jack in the Box. Although, I am employed at a fast food restaurant I do not have the same perspective I did when I was a child. Fast food or should I say, “fat food”, is strictly for social occasions. If I have a date or a hangout with friends I’ll eat there but otherwise I find fast food places to be extremely unhealthy for one’s health. I believe once every two weeks is too much fast food for someone. It shouldn’t be part of anyone’s diet and one should be limited as much as possible. However, I do love Subway and their choices are much healthier.