: Aug.

2022

My Perspectives
Literature
NONFICTION NARRATIVE
Unit 1-Lesson 1
GROUNDED
Page Number 6-7
 Grounded------VOCABULARY
1.Grounded (adj) not allowed to leave house as punishment.
2.Concerned (adj) worry about a situation.
3.Disobeying (v) to neglect or refuse to obey someone, an order, etc.
4.Independence (n) the state or quality of being independent or being free.
5.Freedom (n) the state of being allowed to do what you want to do.
6.Backup (n) the additional support or help needed to accomplish a task.
7. Prodded (v) to urge someone on to act or to respond.
8. Remnant (n) a thing that is left with you.

HOMEWORK
Use each word to construct sentence of your own.
Please underline your vocabularies in each sentence.
Growing up I really didn’t know my grandmother. She was a private person, and
didn’t talk about her past much, but I know she had one. She once told me that
before she got married she was a backup singer in a band that I had actually
heard of. But that’s all she would say about it, no matter how often I prodded.
“El pasado es el pasado,” she told me. The past is the past. To me, she talked in
Spanish. I talked back in English. We understood each other.

The thing I remember most about Grandma Sofia was how much she loved
driving, especially since she came to live with us. She had a 1960s red Chevy
Impala convertible that was all her own, a remnant of her band days. She loved
driving with the top down, the radio blasting, singing at the top of her lungs
when a good song came on. Driving was her independence, her freedom.
My parents, however, were concerned that she was getting too old to drive
around by herself. One night, I overheard them: “She’s okay for now, but how
long before she can’t manage?” “I’ll speak to her tomorrow.”

I felt sick at the thought of Grandma giving up her car. I knew what driving
meant to her. I knew that without her wheels she’d feel ordinary—just another
grandma, hovering and wise.

Sometimes it felt like Grandma and I were on the side-lines and my parents were
in the middle, dragging us toward the center, where we did not want to be. I was
often grounded for the smallest things. I didn’t really mind, under normal
circumstances.
One time—the time I’m writing about—circumstances were not normal. My
parents had grounded me for the weekend of Luisa’s party, easily the social event
of the season. No way was I going to miss it. But my parents weren’t even going
to be home! They were going to my Aunt Leticia’s.It would just be me and
Grandma. Me and Grandma and a 1966 red Chevy Impala convertible …

Saturday night arrived and I was itching to go to the party, so I did the
unthinkable: I asked Grandma to drive me to Luisa’s. I figured she didn’t know
about me being grounded. She looked at me quizzically and said she would. I got
dressed and ran out to the car. She was waiting for me. I got in.

The sky was just beginning to darken, blue clouds against a darker blue sky. Soon
it would be night time. Grandma looked a little uncomfortable. At first I thought
it was because she knew about me being grounded. But then I wondered if
maybe she didn’t want to drive at night and didn’t want to tell me.
At that moment I wouldn’t have minded getting out and going back home. I felt
bad about Grandma. I felt bad about disobeying my parents. But how could I say
any of this?

We took off. She drove slowly, maybe too slowly. But we didn’t get very far.
Suddenly she pulled over and stopped the car. We must have been sitting in that
car for five minutes, which is a long time if you’re sitting in a car not talking. I
couldn’t ask her if she stopped because she was nervous about driving. And I
couldn’t ask if she stopped because she knew I was grounded.

Finally she turned to me. “Regresamos?” Shall we turn back? “Sure,” I replied. I
was so relieved I could have cried. “Bueno,” she said, with a nod. She started the
car and turned on the radio.
It was a song we both knew by heart. But it was clear that Grandma and I could
still learn a lot from each other.