Hotel California

Here is another piece of writing from my English class.


Hotel California
by Robert Parent

Humans lost something when we moved from the country to the city.  And while, it has its merits, city life is nothing without country life. I remember the adventures in the woods behind my house in Auburn, New Hampshire.  I'd get up eat my breakfast of eggs, cereal, pancakes, or just something homemade.  After I put on my adventure clothes, grab my sonic screwdriver, and my magic compass, I would go out to my woods behind and start my daily adventure.  In the school where I studied had a big playground and monkey bars that us children, both boys and girls, would pretend that it was a spaceship or a boat that would take us on an adventure, at least until the bell rang.  In the field behind the school, there was plenty of room for myself and a couple of friends to play adventure games of our own creation, sometimes these adventures were based on what was on TV, like the Six Million Dollar Man or the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries.

Living in the city for years, I look around to the environment that children play have to play in. I don't see the woodlands where children could discover how truly powerful their imaginations are.  I don't see the playgrounds where children could play with each other; I only see parking lots with maybe a basketball hoop because its the cheapest play object that the city can place in a parking lot. No wonder why there is so many gangs in the city.  Children have to explore and figure out their environment.  In the country, nature gives children life to explore. The city shows children how to conquer and control.

As children grow to adulthood, they accumulate the loss from the city experience.  Someone could get in an elevator and go up to the top floor to see a panoramic view, think its good, and continue their day.  In the country, a person must have a plan to climb a mountain and when that person gets to the top, they have an experience by looking around at miles and miles of uninterrupted view, and feel great because this hard climb on this awe inspiring mountain..

Over the years of history, people had to move to the city, but we left something behind, a way of life, a respect to life, and a way to see life, this is where all the problems we have in the city can go back too.  I think that this is the reason why city planners put trees in the city to get back that “thing” lost.  But, a few trees does not a woodland or forest make.  I think people on a different level know what they have lost from moving from the country because many people take vacations to nature spots as if they try to reclaim that “thing” lost.  I have come to the city, to do my work, to live my life, but I miss those childhood adventures, climbing mount Lafayette, and the past perception of my innocence.