We have hit the 1940's, and have entered into WWII. Americans are asked to make sacrifices in order to aid in the war effort, which includes recyling everything from metal and rubber to paper. The high school drop out rate soars as teens are entering the workplace.
In "Maimi-New York we encountered two strangers on a commerical air flight, traveling by plane which was not done as commonly as it is today. In the "Hitchhiker", Tom Harris is a traveling salesman who picks up two hitchhikers on the side of the road to entertain himself. Today, it would be considered foolish to pick up two bums on the side of the road, as we get into the story it should have been considered foolish then as well. In the "The Peach Stone" we encountered a family that was driving back to the woman's hometown to bury their daughter.
"The Peach Stone" is my favorite of this timeframe, even though it is one of the saddest. Cleotha, Jodey, Buddy (their nine year old son), and Arleen (their son's teacher) are traveling to Weed, Cleotha's hometown, in order to bury their 2 year old daughter. Their daughter was tragically killed in a freak fire the prior day. The author went into great detail painting us a picture of the area they traveled through, he also gave us a glimpse of the emotions and pain each were feeling. Buddy, who was looking for reassurance from his mother that everything will be alright, finally got that reassurance with a simple blinking of his mother's eyes. Arleen who started the journey thinking she was superior to this poor family, realized they have something much greater than she....they had each other. Jodey, whose guilt over not cleaning up the tumbleweeds was hurting him deeply, he tried to run over an object in the road to take out those angry feelings.
The importance of the peach tree comes up often in the story, not in the sense of peaches but comparing the peach pit as bringing about life. One of my favorite parts of the story is when they were driving by the old man that she had always looked away from with pity. He was that peach tree that was twisted and dying, but he still had some green leaves on his tree (life) and around him was the peach orchard that had grown from his peach stone. His children and grandchildren had surrounded him giving him love and support, and admist the past tradegies and pain in his life he still sang. The signficance of this is not lost on Cleotha. In the end Cleotha breaks her grief filled silence to rejoin her family, the power of love that comes from being a family brings her back.
In "Maimi-New York", the two characters in the story are sizing each up. They make assumptions about one another, by judging the looks of the other's face. Her marriage is in trouble and he is coming back from war. They connected with a kiss, and continued to have a make out session on the plane even though neither knew the other. When he realized who Kate was his attitude changed, she was older and more worldy not someone he could just play with. His intentions were to have a good time for the moment and hers were to continue the relationship when the plane landed, because she did not have casual relations with a man. John walks away from the airport not giving Kate another thought, and Kate leaves the airport in despair. I get from this story the assumptions people make about one another without knowing the other person. But also the persumption that a 35 year old woman is middle aged and no longer desirable which was how John made Kate feel in the end. I would like to think women of today are more empowered than that.
"The Hitchhikers" is the story of Tom Harris, a traveling salesman. I honestly did not enjoy this story very much. Tom seems very disjointed from the things and people around him. He picks up two bums on the side of the road and travels them to his next destination, and even attempted to get them a place to stay - the back porch of hotel. They repay him by stealing his car, and one of the guys clobbers the other with a beer bottle to the head. Tom seems to have this revered status amongst the local people of this town, but he seemed to just tolerate his relationship with them.
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