4b-Reflections

I read the work submitted by Michelle Piscitello and with the first story we read, I found that we both think that planned communities have too many rules and looking just like your neighbor (home) is not that important. An interesting point of view that she had was regarding the pool key that the author described. I didn't think that not losing the key was so important to them because they love the pool so much, in fact, I didn't think that the parents ever went to the pool, I just thought that they valued their money so much that they did not want to ever pay to replace the key.

In Cotton Candy Mirrors we both were reminded about growing up during a time that we were allowed to play outside and that parents did not fear for our safety 24/7. We both had the same point of view with this story.

I agree that the story Berkely reminds us that we are lucky to live in this area and all the opportunities we are given. I also did not realize everything that Berkeley has to offer before reading this story.

I couldn't relate to the story California Honky Tonk yet Michelle thought of the passion people have to do the things they love when she read this story and that is true.

Monica S. Badgley read The Big Valley by Arax and in her review I learned that fig roots never leave the ground. In Transients in Paradise by Liu, I found out that Beverly Hills does not have hospitals. I had never heard of the Owens River or that it exists off Hightway 395 in the San Gabriel Mountains before reading her review of Showing off the Owens by Jefferson-Parker and in The Distant Cataract About Which We Do Not Speak by Mary Mackey I learned that some people in Sacramento kayak to work and that there are 75,000 russians living in Sacramento County.

Through Elisabeth Laxton's work, I learned that foreign speedways have a lack of traffic etiquette and laws (Ode to Caltrans by Hector Tobar), that California has myths that interest non-residents and spark nostalgia in native Californians which has shaped California into the only state of its kind (Montalvo, Myths & Dreams by John Steinbeck); that Seal Beach has been a hold out as a town that has maintained its small town charm and feeling and has not been overtaken by chain stores (The Last Little Beach Town by Edward Humes); and Mavericks used to be the sight of illegal alchohol smuggling during the Prohibition Era (Surfacing by Matt Warshaw).