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Short Story : ' The Car Went Sideways Down The Street ' Essay

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The car went sideways down the street, sliding end around end, tires squealing and spinning, trying to find an inkling of exposed concrete so they could reclaim their rubbery grip from the ice that had slathered itself over our small rural town. Hoping to end this impromptu winter carousel ride, dad maniacally spun the steering wheel like some possessed pirate spinning the helm of a galley; countering the direction in which the car was sliding. All the while, the string of vulgarities spewing from his whisker guarded mouth were my introduction to new, colorful vocabulary that I would proudly demonstrate to my friends on Monday, back at school during recess, if I survived. My dad must’v read my mind, “God damnit, Dale,” he snarled out of the corner of his mouth, “If we make it out of this, your ass is grounded until you’re dead.” Most kids would have recognized the direness of this type of threat and then realized that they wouldn’t actually be grounded until they were dead. But then again, most kids didn’t have a dad like mine. He was a real hardass, and the potential for me to be grounded until I was six-feet under was an actuality. He had volunteered for the army when he was 17. Grandpa signed his papers to allow him to enter the service a year earlier than army standards stated. He served in Korea for two years as a member of the infantry before being wounded. Dad killed countless “slant-eyes”, “gooks”, and “buck-toothed son-of-a-bitches”. Although he rarely talked

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