In these first few pages I was able to get a taste of what a different life, full of different hardships feels like. The way the book is written is enticing because it is from the view of someone that has had experiences that have made him strong and unbreakably formed.
Monday, December 12, 2016
The First 47
Merely within the first forty seven pages of my book All The Way by Jordin Tootoo we learn that this memoir is going to bring us to understand things about Jordin that we ultimately have to factor into our own understanding of him as a person. "During the year that Terence was playing in The Pas and I was playing in Spruce Grove, his coaches started asking about me." (pg. 40) With this quote I believe that one is able to understand the rate of Jordin's abilities on the ice were becoming increasingly prevalent, even for a young kid. During the beginning of this book we learn how Jordin grew up, and it was not a pleasant thing to wrap your head around. Jordin grew up with a sister Corinne and a brother Terrance, both older, they looked after Jordin, kept him safe from their alcoholic parents. Terrence eventually began having to send them money just to keep them out of his and Jordin's lives. As a young kid Jordin left home at a young age to go play hockey in many different places. I think with his home life seeming so unstable he could not wait to leave and i think that that plays a factor in the way his life ended up going and changing and what allowed Jordin to follow form his own person, straight from the bottom up. Sure we see inevitable bump hitting and issues that seem unbeatable but looking through all of that we can see a man that is going to begin his career and become something great out of nothing, because he is strong and having the experiences, with minor hockey, billet families, drinking, hate, meeting new people.
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I like when you discuss how Terrence sent money to keep his parents out of there lives. I agree that this was ultimately the goal, he didn't send it to support his family, so they could keep buying booze and going to bingo. Even though that is what they did with it and that's how Jordin saw it. He simply wanted to shut them up and keep them out of there lives. The brothers had been through enough well living in Rankin and they didn't want to put up with them anymore when they didn't need to. I think Terence saw it as a harmful thing because he was supporting there drinking habits; but a nessasary thing if he wanted to continue on with his life.
ReplyDeleteI also think Terence took his role as a big brother seriously. Maybe too seriously at times, but seriously nonetheless. He wasn't stupid, if the way Jordin described him was any indication. There is always a little brother's idolization to factor in, but that admiration doesn't just come from thin air.
ReplyDeleteTerence was a good person. He knew what his parents were doing wasn't right. He saw other families and knew his parents weren't the norm. The more he could keep them away, the better it was. The more he could drive Jordin toward a goal and away from their parents, the safer Jordin was.
I wish I could've gotten to know Terence from his own perspective, like we did with Jordin. I feel like there are so many hints about how a good of a person he really was, how much he cared and watched over people, even if they didn't realize it, but Jordin's descriptions just don't give us the detail making such a distinction would entail. I feel I would've had a lot more personal connections with Jordin's older brother than with him.