This and That from My Life

1. My Name
2. Cans
3.Handwriting
4.Number 5

My Name

My names have much significance to me. In Greek, my first name means helper of mankind. To acquire my first name, my parents were traveling in Paris, France when my mom was pregnant with me. They were walking around enjoying the many sights of The City of Lights, when they came across a marble statue of Alexander The Great. They thought that the statue was so magnificent that they wanted to name their son after it.

My middle name was passed down from my grandfather on my mom’s side, his full name was Edwin Martin Quinn. My grandfather was a spy in World War II and he gathered intelligence to help the allies defeat the Germans. He was deceased before I was born, so I was named in his honor. Sometimes people scoff at the name, Edwin, but when I hear this I just smile inside because I know that I was named after a very brave man, brave like a lion.

My last name also has a very interesting story. My great grandfather on my dad’s side was was orphaned by a fire at a young age, at this time his last name, Freund. He was later adopted by his mother parents and he took their last name, Noble.  I like the name Noble because it gives me a goal to live up to, to be noble.

Cans

When I was trying to earn money for a Washington DC trip as an 8th grader I collected cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. At the beginning, I handed out fliers that asked for recyclables. There were many different types of can donors, the pick-ups and the drop-offs. To acquire cans from the pick-ups, I would take my wagon over to their house and load it up with the goods. For the drop-offs, they would kindly drop off anything that they had to offer. Between these groups, their were many differences. The people who dropped off seemed way more organized. Some people who I picked up from would put anything in the bag, from salsa containers to orange juice cartons that were still full, neither of them weren’t worth any California redemption value. One of the most interesting can donors was a Vietnam war Veteran with a really bad drinking problem. With the consistency of old faithful, he would call over and request to talk me.

Is Alex available?, he would say in an slightly inebriated voice.

Yes I’m here, I would always reply.

I have some recyclables ready for you to pick up, come on down, he would say, barley slurring his words together.

Ok, I’ll be right over, I retorted.

I would always wonder if he was ok when I heard him on the phone because he seemed to always be impaired due to alcohol.

The first time I ever made the trek over to him house, my nose was assaulted with the thick stench of alcohol that wafted from his house. When I saw the three hefty garbage bags full of recyclables, I figured that he had been saving them up for many, many months because of the sheer volume. I happily collected them and hauled them back to my yard. When I looked to investigate my loot, I found that only 25% of the recyclables were actually available for the California Redemption Value. The other 75% filled up all of my blue bin. The next week at the same time, I received a call and went over to my donor, very surprised that he was ready for me to pick up already. I didn't expect it, but there were three full garbage bags of recyclable again! When I looked through the bag, to my dismay, it was full of blue bin clogging items that I would receive no money for. At first I thought of all the extra work that this would cause me to endure, but then I thought about how badly that all that alcohol was affecting my neighbor.

On the trip that I worked so hard to go to, I saw many sights, including the  Vietnam War memorial. Later, I thought of how my neighbor was negatively affected by the war and was forced by post-traumatic stress disorder to start drinking the pain away.  When I was visiting in DC I sent him a postcard  thanking him for the support. To this day, whenever I walk by he will always call me over and talk to me.

Handwriting

Everyone in my family has different handwriting. My Dad’s handwriting looks like quick scratch, where every word seems to blend together, but surprisingly it is still readable. My Dad’s messy handwriting is derived from the thousands of papers my Dad has written due to the fact that he is a lawyer. My handwriting is very messy and it closely resembles Dad’s handwriting because we both are bad at keeping it neat. My sister who is 11, has handwriting similar to mine, but it has something mine is lacking, that little girly touch, that all girls seem to have present in their handwriting. My Mom’s handwriting seems to be infused with bubbles because it is very flowy and big and easy to read, much like her personality. She tries to write neatly because she is a teacher and she wants to set a good example for her students. My sister who is 4 has handwriting that I cant categorize yet because she doesn’t write very often, but from what I have seen she might be destined to the fate that is bad handwriting, well I guess it runs in the family.

Number Five

    My sister and I sensed some big news as we ate spaghetti and meatballs at the kitchen table.  My dad`s fidgeting and my mom`s unusual silence signaled the coming changes. In the days before, my parents dropped subtle hints about the special surprise but my sister and I did not understand them. When my dad noticed my puzzled expression, he said, “We are having a baby!” Screams and cheers of approval and sheer happiness erupted from the kid’s side of the table while my parents beamed at the positive reaction. The cheers and applause sounding like we won the lottery.When he said that, I knew a monumental transformation would enter my life. My mind raced. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look like me? Would we have to share a room? Would I have to change diapers!?!
     Before I knew it, my mom turned into even more of a health nut. She dragged me and any other unsuspecting family member on vigorous walks, ate strangely named vitamins that I recognized from aggressive commercials and drank lots of herbal tea that smelled earthy like our compost pile to coax the baby out.  Instead of watching television, our family past time turned into feeling my mom’s belly for kicks and movements.
    In a flash, the eve of the big day arrived, the arrangements were made and everyone was ready for the arrival of the newest Noble. We did not know if she would arrive on her due date.  We  eagerly awaited her arrival.  On the Friday before her due date, my mom walked us to school before her doctor’s appointment.  She did not come to pick us up after school as usual.  Our neighbor picked us up and told us that our mom was in the hospital having the baby.
    Early next morning my dad picked my sister and me up to go visit my mom and new sister. My dad asked us if we wanted to get balloons to make the new baby feel welcome but my sister and I quickly refused because we did not want to wait any longer. On the drive to the hospital I interrogated my dad on the labor, he said it was quick and easy (for him at least, my mom had a different story).
    When we got to the hospital room, her tininess and fragileness confounded me;  afraid to even touch her for fear of hurting her. She looked like a little glass doll, free of imperfections. I could tell from the sweet innocent look on her face as I held her that we were going to be very close. At that moment I was genuinely happy to have a baby sister.
    My newborn sister got the name “number  five” by being the fifth person in the west coast Noble family. My dad tried to use this numbering system for all of us, but it never took flight similar to the idea of room cleaning. The only person stuck with this cheesy nickname was Allison Katherine Noble.