Memories Where do I start? As a young child in my neighborhood, I knew everyone by name. I could recite many different things about them and was close with a lot of them. Moving days were sad, but I remember them as if they happened yesterday. I remember all of the good days and have repressed a lot of the bad ones. Growing up, my teachers in school used to tell me to slow down when I talked because I used to talk loud and fast. Over the years, my communication skills have improved and people don’t tell me that anymore. The article titled "A Remedy for the Rootlessness of Modern Suburban Life?" By Sarah Boxer. is about the suburbs. “They call for some old-fashioned things: walkable neighborhoods with a mix of residences, businesses and public places; straight and narrow streets; wide sidewalks, and no cul de sacs.” If you keep reading it then says “They believe houses should be built close enough together and close enough to the sidewalks to define streets and public squares.” In my neighborhood, the only distance between my house and my neighbor’s house is a driveway and maybe some grass. Later in the essay they say something about being “neighborly” and I agree with that. I knew everyone by name and I remember the day they moved away or became sick and died. When my father left fourteen years ago, I thought I was doomed. Turns out, I wasn’t and I owe that to my older brothers and my one childhood friend that I would do everything with named Aaron. Everyday we were together causing mischief and running the streets. We would play hide-in-seek in everyone’s yards, usually hiding in the bushes or behind sheds. My mother used to say that we were inseparable and then the day came when he said he was moving. I remember it like it was yesterday, but it was eleven years ago. I remember all of the fun we had and he helped shape me into the person that I now am. The best memory of us two together was when I ended up with three stitches on my head. We decided that we wanted to be professional golfers and were playing in his front yard. The next thing I know I’m bleeding and screaming. I ended up in the Emergency Room with three stitches. I laugh when I think about now and it makes me miss him even more. I will never forget him and maybe one day I will see him again. Not only did I have Aaron as a friend but also the older neighborhood kids that treated me like I was one of them. Everyone knew everyone else and it was nice having that bond with my neighbors. Nowadays, I don’t see nor speak to any of them. Deborah Tannen writes the essay "Connections." Tannen talks about her communication with her parents and her sister. She says how she waiting four hours one night just to make a phone call to her mother and father. She e-mailed her sister a lot and that is how they kept in touch since they were across the ocean and hundreds of miles away. She kept up a lot of friendship and learned about the guy that sat next to her at work because of the technology and the thing called e-mail. Over the years, technology has gotten better and better. It seems as if it keeps improving, what’s next? Sometimes its hard to keep in touch with people when you get older so you find a way to communicate that works out best. E-mail is very fast and unaffordable so it appears that everyone uses it. As a child in my household, I had to talk very loud and very fast at the dinner table to get what I needed to say out. I had two older brothers and two younger sisters. My mother could not listen to all of us at the same time. It looked like we were all fighting, but we were just trying to talk at the dinner table. On the first day of junior high, I met a girl named Natalie. We used to talk on the phone for hours and spend as much time together as we possibly could. I remember always fighting with my sisters over the telephone; we all wanted to talk to our friends at the exact same moment. The fights over the phone went on for a few more years. At the start of high school, my mother decided to get into the technology era and we got out first computer and that meant that we got to have the internet. At that time I became friends with a girl named Dana. We talked on the phone and the computer a lot. When my brother’s death hit my family, she was there for me through it all. She was always seeing how I was doing and she cared. Now we barely speak because of our schedules but we still manage the occasional chats with each other. Sometimes my mother would be very annoyed with us all and it seemed as if no one could blame her. She would go to work all day long, come home and have to deal with our fights. After a little, the fighting all stopped and my house became a quiet place. After my graduation from high school things changed. Now, my mother can come home after work and relax because there are no more fights over the computer or the phone. My sisters and I each have our own cell phone and computer. They are our lifelines to the world and our way to communicate to each other without personally having to talk. Throughout my years in this hectic place known as life, I have realized that I would not be the person that I am today without the friends that I had and the changes that I had to deal with. Living in the suburbs has helped me deal with life’s crazy problems because I had awesome neighbors that cared and communicating with them was easy. A handful of the old neighbors have moved away and left me here, but because of the internet, we still talk. I am glad that I got to grow up where I did and learn the things that I did. The suburbs are not a bad place and the internet is more good than bad.