![]() Here we are, instead, on a frigid December day in 1929, walking up a steep stretch of Pinckney Street, on Beacon Hill, in Boston. ![]() What’s impossible to write down, soon afterward, is a conversation that comes easily. ![]() What were we talking about, just now? We were close for almost sixty years, and you’d think that a little back-and-forth-something more than a joke or part of an anecdote-would survive, but no. One hand is holding a cigarette tentatively-he’ll smoke it halfway down and then stub it out-and he turns in his chair to put his Martini back on the Swedish side table to his right. I see his plaid button-down shirt and tweed jacket, and his good evening moccasins. In my mind, this is at his place in North Brooklin, Maine, and he’s almost still around. White died in 1985-twenty years ago, come October-and by “missing” I don’t mean yearning for him so much as not being able to keep hold of him for a bit of conversation or even a tone of voice. I can hear the sound of that gray door-the steps there lead down into the fragrant connecting woodshed-as the lift-latch clicks shut. The lake helps him think back and develop a better understanding of his situation.Lately I have been missing my stepfather, Andy White, who keeps excusing himself while he steps out of the room to get something from his study or heads out the back kitchen door, on his way to the barn again. For instance, when White goes back to the lake, it facilitates his reflection of change and development. In relation, the lake serves as a venue for reflection. For example, the essay shows that the lake serves as a setting for familial interactions, especially in the author’s past. It is just that he was used to the old and less noisy ones, thereby making his claims more personal and not necessarily real.Į.B White’s lake is a symbol of the role of physical spaces in personal development. Perhaps the new and noisier boats are not really that disruptive. Also, the technology that he refers to, in the form of the new and noisier engines, may have also been affected by such switching in his perceptions. Thus, it is possible that the actual lake that he revisits is already different, but his perception, as a boy, does not change, thereby making the lake virtually unchanged. Considering that White shows that his perceptions actually switches from that of an adult and that of a boy, it is arguable that his actual experience of the lake as an adult is marred by such switching between perceptions. His experience of being at the lakefront brings him back to his childhood years when he experiences the lake. The lake could have already changed when he arrives at the lakefront as an adult, but his perception of the lake does not change. White shows the lake is unchanged, but this may be only in his own perception. However, there are some things that do not change, such as the thought of a person, the feelings towards other people that one has, the longing for something, and so on. All things change on the basis of the underlying principle that nothing is constant in this world and that ever little thing changes. Thus, even though he first views technology as something disruptive, there is also emphasis on the personal perception factor, which means that White did not like the noise of the new engine and, arguably, did not like the new engine, because of the fact that he wants and expected to see boats with the old engines that he saw in the childhood. Nonetheless, a White continues his story, it is indicated that he has a liking for old engines. Thus, White emphasizes the negative side of new technologies. Even though technology can, indeed, make things become faster and more efficient, technology can also make things noisier and more disruptive. White wants to show that the technology can be disruptive. ![]()
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