Drifting Back In Time

I wrote this in response to a little contest at another site I visit.

This is the story I came up with in response to quebecfoxtrot's blogger challenge. The challenge was to write a 100 word story containing the phrases exemplary vocabulary, the back shed door, eventual depravity, and blissful procreativity. My attempt went just over 300 words, so I failed the challenge but enjoyed the try. Here's the result of my effort, slightly changed to correct discovered errors:

Drifting Back in Time
Now, I've never been known to have an exemplary vocabulary. I love the English language and all, but the fact of the matter is I prefer to be simple and to the point. It's not that I have anything against the use of big words. I just like to know that what I'm saying can be understood by my entire audience. It's a habit I developed rather early in life.

I come from a family line whose past members were lucky to get to high school. I can relay stories about two mile barefoot walks to one room schoolhouses. I can tell you stories handed down to me about kids picking their own "switches" off of a bush or small tree, being taken through the back shed door and then getting the living hell beaten out of them for an offense so minor as a dirty look.

While a handful of these beings make it out of the utter hopelessness of poverty and ignorance, most of them grow up to continue the cycle of eventual depravity. Alcoholism and other drug use, spousal abuse, child abuse, jail, and premature death abounds. Taking trips back to those places where my roots lie is depressing, for the most part. Oh, the landscape is beautiful, but a haunting presence lingers. The present generation still holds a deeply troubled past in their eyes. As one who has shared it, I know exactly what that look of despair means.

Another thing that troubles me is the blissful procreativity that still goes on. I use the term blissful sarcastically. Babies being born to fourteen and fifteen year olds aren't something to make light of. Some of these girls will have three or four kids by the time they reach twenty. Though I understand the root of the problem, I guess I'll just never be able to understand the mentality that allows the cycle to continue.
___________________________________JohnnyB
© 2009 john-michael productions, ltd.

Reviews

[de nada]

Kind of negitive, but it's written very well. I feel the exact opposite of the first paragraph, but I tend to use small words becuase I can't spell. As for roots, I don't have much to say about that, since I never had grandparents to tell me about them. And for your last line, it's not so much a mentality, as much as stupidity.