Vet

The poem where the the veteran is at the Vietnam memorial (I don't remember the name) was a really good one. It was very emotional and just all around good. I think the things he saw in the mirror were flashbacks about when he was in the war. I also have somewhat a personal connection to this poem, kinda. I have a friend who was sent to Iraq and stepped on an IED and got both his legs blown off, completely. He also is now blind in both eyes. He had PTSD for a while after he get home. Also goes to show that people who have PTSD and suffered a lot in the war can also live out the rest of their lives once they get over it, if they ever do. My friend is now married and has a son who is almost two years old.

Dammit, Grandma!

In A Good Man Is Hard To Find the grandma should have just kept her mouth shut and enjoyed the ride. It was all her fault that they ran into the misfit and got everyone killed. She was so stubborn that she couldn't accept that her directions were wrong! She may have even planned for them to get lost all along. Who knows, she probably did. Grandma's can be mean sometimes. I really did not like the grandma, as you can tell. That aside, I thought it was a pretty good short story. It was interesting. It made me mad at times, but it was interesting. I wonder if that cat lived or not? Did it escape of did the misfit hunt it down and make a chinese food out of it?

"Fairy"

I never realized exactly how badly the people of the time of Sammy Clay treated homosexuality. You honestly had to live in fear of expressing how you truly are in hopes of not being arrested, beaten, and scolded wherever you went. What if the world was full of homosexuals who treated straight people that way? It's pretty messed up how people treat others badly just because of their sexual orientation. Some people say that it's "against god's word" and crap like that. Even if it is against your god's word, then he will deal with them when they die and they will rot in hell like they said. But that is no reason for people to treat them badly. Someone being gay does not affect anyone around them, and half the time you wouldn't even know if someone was gay unless they told you or you saw them with their partner. I am glad that people are growing more and more accepting that everyone is equal and that homosexuality is nothing to be frowned upon. Sam Clay was a very tough person to be able to suppress his feelings for most of his life in order to be their for Rosa and Tommy, a very tough person.

Jew During the War

I can't imagine what it must have felt like for Joe knowing that he is in America safe and sound while his family is still in Prague with the threat of Hitler running rampant across Europe. The constant worrying and trying to think of ways to help would have drove me insane. Drawing comics of superheroes beating up Hitler and the Nazis helped I'm sure, but that can only do so much. After his families death, when he finally couldn't take it anymore, he joined the military in order to try to get back at the Germans. This turned out to be a pretty bad move. He spend most of his military days in Antarctica where the majority of his fellow team died due to poor ventilation and was left with only a dog and a crazy pilot. When Joe finally got a chance to kill a German like he had so wanted to do when he first started, he changed his mind and tried to be peaceful. He ended up getting shot in the shoulder and accidentally killing the German; Joe thought that was the saddest moment of his entire life, he did not want to kill the man. I can't imagine what it would be like to kill someone. I think I would be like Joe and not want to do it. Life is precious.

The Escapist

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Joe and Sammy's superhero The Escapist was pretty much a very strong and skilled escape artist. No chains, locks, or anything could keep him from serving up justice. This character was very sentimental to Joe because he himself was a practicing escape artist back in Prague and aspired to be like Harry Houdini. Joe also admired The Escapist because being a Jew escaped from Prague, he felt that the Germans were holding him and his family down and he so desperately wished to escape that he started picking fights with every German he saw in order to exact his revenge(if you would call it that). At the end of the book when The Escapist had to finally be retired due to a lawsuit, it hit Joe pretty hard. Although he didn't show it, he felt that something inside of him had died.

Greedy Bastards

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Sammy and Joe created a superhero named The Escapist for their boss at Empire Comics. The Escapist was supposed to be the comic company's very own Superman and make them millions, which it did. Sammy and Joe came up with the idea and all of the stories themselves, but were only entitled to a small portion of the profits because of a contract they signed to get their idea started. Although the two really didn't have a choice on whether or not to sign, because they didn't have the money nor the marketing powers to start selling their brainchild. Mr. Deasey and Mr. Anapol became multi-millionaires thanks to Joe and Sam, but never entitled them to more than a small percentage of the profits for any of their superhero comics. I think this was pretty messed up. I know that they had to get the majority of the money to keep funding the comic books, but they could have given the two boys at least 25% for all the work that they did. I think Deasey and Anapol were some pretty greedy bastards.

The Glass Laura

                The Glass Menagerie was a pretty good short story.  I liked it because I could relate to Tom in the way that everyone expects him to do what they want him to do and don’t care about what he wants for himself.  Although it is expected of him to stay at home and help pay the bills, he feels that he needs to escape the house as much as possible (going to the movies).  I think that the mother needs to accept the fact that he is grown and can make his own decisions, and maybe she needs to get a job and pay the bills herself instead of expecting him to do it all.  I didn’t really like the mother, she nags too much.  And Laura needs to get over her self-esteem issues and go back to school so she herself can get a job and help pay the bills around the house instead of sitting at home all day and looking at her glass collection.  I know that’s easier said than done but she could at least give it a little effort instead of sitting there feeling sorry for herself.