NUALA1988/GCP
ENGL10

Compensation at its Finest

Debt is something that people often view as money or anything that would equal to the latter. But it can also be the form of a simple act and if taken to a profound level, it could lead to a life changing event.

In Michael Dorris’ essay Summer Reading, he reminisced one of the most unforgettable days during his adolescent life when his anticipated form of payment came in the most unexpected way he could have thought of. With his summer work mowing lawns, he categorized his regulars based on work payments, emphasizing on a particular individual, Mr. Ballou and how he fell into the non-paying category. The author thought of him as someone who constantly has a good excuse for not compensating on the running total of dues but acknowledged the idea of not giving too much importance on the matter. As the author tells of how Mr.Ballou offered a couple of books as a provisional monetary replacement, the writer puts in the picture of how his reading habits lacked interest in the pursuit of pure knowledge but only run of the mill instances when tiny sparks of curiosity happens. Then being presented with the first book Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart, the writer briefly conveyed how this encounter opened his understanding on how literature’s simplicity and elegance can have so much power in such a small size. The second book presented was Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa, which shows the climax of the essay, hinting