Reading: This Boy's Life; pages 1-15, By Tobias Wolff

This story begins with a boy named Toby and his mother waiting outside their nash rambler on the road waiting for the engine to cool down. While standing on the road the two here an air horn in the distance. The sounds gets closer and around to corner a large truck with a trailer on the back is flying down the road pulling its horn. The mother turns to Toby and said "Oh Toby, he's lost his brakes." The truck continued down the highway and when Toby and his mother caught up to it there was a bunch of people huddled over the edge of a cliff where the truck had driven off. People looked down the over hundred foot fall towards the truck, and no one said a word.
Its 1955, Toby explains that they are moving from Sarasota, Florida to Utah because his mother is trying to escape from a man who scares her and to get rich on uranium. It then describes their car journey through small Southern towns as people on their front porch wave and whistle at his mother. Toby then goes into the background of his mother in which he says that she was born in Beverly Hills to a navy officer and paper millionaire father. However right before her Irish father lost all his many he went overseas. The mother then described the Mexican neighbors they had who had struck it rich on oil, and she told Toby that something like that was going to happen to them.
Toby and his mom then arrive and Utah and Toby wants to change his name to Jack. His mom agrees as long as Toby takes catechism classes at the church and so he agrees. Toby's father catches word of this and he and Toby get in a small fit over changing an Irish family name, which turns out it was not at all. In this argument Toby explains his father's false affection for family lineage as he has a fake coat of arms and supposed "antique family furniture." Eventually the father gives in and Toby begins taking catechism classes. Here we are introduced to Sister James, the enthusiastic Church teacher. She makes Toby choose a club to meet in after school and he chooses archery. At first Toby says that they would shoot at targets, but occasionally "miss fire"an arrow towards the neighbor's cats in a field. When the cats became smart and didn't come back Toby and other kids devised a new game. When Sister James was gone the boys went into the forests and hunted each other. Toby explains all the close calls such as when one boy got shot in the wallet, and other tales that would go down as legends. One day, however, when Toby was in the woods playing he heard leaves rustle behind him and when he turned around Sister Jane was standing there. She said, "Games Over" and that was that.
I think that this book is pretty cool so far. The character Toby is somewhat comical which provides for an easy flow in the story and the great use of description makes it easy to paint the setting in my mind. So far the stories that Toby has told sparks child hood memories that I remember having, like playing games with my neighbors, and all the good old outside adventures that I would have with my guy pals before they were lazily forgotten of with a quick flash of my face on a drivers license. The light hearted trip back in time that this book provides is making me want to continue reading it to see where it goes.