Memory Evoking Essay (Creative Sample)

Paul Yao
Ms. Clapp
AP English Literature
September 2, 2008
It was the summer of 2001, the bus had just dropped off the kids, which officially ended the last day of school. I was the last kid to get off that yellow bus, gleeful as ever, spewing ever swear word I know (quite an impressive variety I‘m proud to say; thank you Merriam Webster Dictionary and the inquisitive mind of a 9 year old regarding anything and everything sleazy and obscene) as my posse of eight and ten years of age admirers closely followed one by one as I passed the two. The rest of kids rushed back to their respective apartments, their bags jingling and jangling with broken macaroni arts and pencil boxes that had burst open releasing the color pencils and markers as well as the pencil shavings that kids are too lazy to go up and throw away. I announced to my minions, that it’s time to begin the summer with a bang. “Forsooth!”, they both shout in unison.
We were little kids, our good time is anything but, when I look back on it now. It was “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Foxtrot” comic books along with hours upon hours of video games and of course the infamous freezy pop that we considered was “having a party“.
Ah, freezy pops, that artificial flavoring in combination to vivid colors parallel to those of skittles, dying your tongue into a sickening shade. Those stick shaped icicles held in cheap plastic in which you have to either find scissors to cut open or rip with your teeth where the center of any summer in my neighborhood. My friends and I would alternate between who goes and buys the daily stash. We go through about 20 or so each, give or take. Failing to buy and provide the daily stash is a big no no which would result in dire consequences which include constant shunning and hazing.
A typical day would consist of first walking to the local Market Basket and purchasing literally 100 freezy pops at twenty five cents each and then quickly scurring back to the buyers house and starting a spree of video games and comics. We would eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the buyer’s house as well as spend the night there. The next day the whole process would begin again only this time rotating to the next person’s house.
Looking back at it now it was the blue one was always the one to evoke the memories of summers past. Whether it was the flavor of blueberry, or should I say what resembles blueberry , or the site of that blue frozen glow stick, or maybe a combination of both. But I have to owe my gratitude to those frozen sugar sticks as they kept a hold of the summer… literally. The unfrozen residue always dribbled on the comics making a simple task like turning the page very tedious and personalized the video game controller as the person left sticky fingerprints all over it. As to this day I’m still a sucker for those freezy pops, extra points if blue.