?Admiring A Friend? Essay, Research Paper

Tim Taylor

Expository Essay

Dr. Joanna Perice

09/11/00

“Admiring a friend”

I am sitting in this blank room looking for something to inspire me. When suddenly I look out my dorm room window and a wafting smell of brownies fills my nostrils. Immediately I begin to think about how much I really admire my mom for her many accomplishments, and her overcoming of many obstacles. She has always been there for me. No matter the circumstances she has always risen to the occasion helping me to accomplish my own desires and goals.

My mom has jet-black curly hair. She is about 6’00” feet tall. And her complexion is age defying, like Julie Andrews as “Peter Pan”. Her skin is as soft as a hand quilted blanket that keeps you warm during the winter. Her eyes a tigress gold and sea green in color. The two colors look as if the were in a constant battle for dominance. She smells of a sunny spring day when all the wild flowers are in bloom. This is what makes up my mom’s looks, hers what makes up her soul.

My mother’s name is Sara McCurly; she was born in Macon, Georgia. Her parents were Timothy and Irene McCurly. He was Judge in the courts of Georgia and she was a housewife. They also had a maid by the name of Milly. They raised my mom with an upper class stern hand. Teaching her under the code of the south. She was an only child living in the 50’s when there was no Television. The only entertainment she had was her baby dolls, and a vivid imagination. She would tell me stories of the time she would spend at an old, child size, oak table, hosting tea parties to her dolls. She would have conversations, arguments, drinking invisible Tea as the adults did in those days. She said she would always mimic her mother’s friends when they would come for tea. Once she finally matured into a young teenager with the knowledge of the world began to rebel as all teenagers of the sixties era did running around with young boys, cursing the strips and smoking cigarettes with her influential friends. Luckily enough she still made it through high school and graduated as valedictorian. After high school she decided to attend the University of Georgia in the fall with the influence of her parents backing her decision. Not really ever having a chance to “expand her horizons” she spread her wings as if a newly hatched bird learning to fly for the first time. She probably stayed in school for maybe 10 months, until she decided that she did not need an education. So got her best friend in the school talked her into believing the something and they took off leaving all of their belongings. They left in such a hurry that my mom forgot to pack her shoes. Their destination was Washington D.C. Once they got there my mom’s brilliant ideas came to stop, and they had nothing. While my mom was gallivanting around in Washington a student a Georgia began to worry about her his name was Michael Taylor a basketball player who liked my mom a lot. Well, he found out that she indeed left school and was off finding her self in Washington. He then got the notion to go find her scoop her up and bring her back home and marry her. Ounce he brought her back and they settled down he finished school and they moved to Massachusetts so that Michael could attend grad school. In the process my brother was born on February 1972. Now here a problem arose “how to afford grad school and keep a house a wife and a new born happy.” So my mom willingly took the role of a working parent. She worked two jobs to keep her husband in school, food on the table and cloths on her son’s back. By the way my brothers name is Michael Keith Taylor Jr. They lived there for three years, deciding they could not afford living in Massachusetts they moved north to Vermont. Then my father ounce again applied for grad school at the university of Vermont, and same as before my mom was the sole provider for the household ounce again. Yet, this time she is pregnant again with my sister Margot Irene Taylor. Nine months go by when my sister is born. Then my dad graduates from grad school and finds a good local job. Now that my dad is out of school my mom gets her long time chance to return to school. So she applies to university of Vermont and attends for two years when my dad ounce again decides to up and move not thinking of my mom’s wants or what he may be doing to the family they move to Rhode Island. So never going against her husband’s word goes along with his plans. Once there she applied to school at the university of Rhode Island. There she stays for three years completing her bachelor’s degrees. I say “Degrees” because as much transferring she did she accumulated many credit hour and graduated with four bachelors degrees. After she got her degrees her and Michael mutually decide to move to New Jersey. This is when my mom decided after seven years that she wanted another child. So they discussed it and Michael did not want a third child. This did not stop my mom, so she waited until she was ovulating and got pregnant unbenonced to Michael. Nine months later Michael gets a phone call from a Philadelphia hospital saying that his wife was in labor. On April 1977 I was born. Soon after we decided to move to Tennessee. They lived there for about a year and a half, then moved back to Georgia making full circle. It was here, my mom decided to defy her southern morals and leave her husband.

Now alone with three children she moved to Hillsborough, North Carolina. At this point, my brother and sister were 12 and 13 years of age so this gave my mom a chance to find a good job close to home. And she found a job working for the mayor. For the first four years of living in north Carolina we had no car we had a red flyer wagon that my mom would pull to the store with me in it getting groceries from the A&P. When I turned 6 years old we got our first car. It was an orange Honda Rabbit with only one car seat. We took two kitchen chairs and placed them in the back and who ever sat shot gun had to sit in the floor. Imagine going to school and being dropped off in that. I have one memory of being dropped off at school and as my pulls away the passenger side door fell off. We had to get a hefty synch sack and make it into a door. Then my mom bought our next car for $300 it was a Chevrolet Duster this car was extra long and green. This car would leave a smoke trail thick enough for Hanssel and Greddil to find their way home. When we would pull into the schoolyard in this car all the kids would start singing in tune the Batman theme as we got out of the car.

Finally, my mom met someone new by the name of James Earl Morton. I was about eight at the time we decided to move to Mebane. Now we still are currently live in Mebane, were we are still living happily together. Again I admire my mother for her constant effort in keeping her children safe, and was always strong willed enough to accomplish all of her personal goals. Lastly, but most importantly her attitude never letting the tough obstacles to get her down. I love my mom with all of my heart and I always and forever will.