Peaks and Valleys Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy by Stephanie Dray
Main Page Novels Genre Short Stories Journal Mainstream Short Stories Articles Essays Reviews	Essays A Civics Lesson from Justice Brennan: After three years of law school, the trauma of the bar exam, and student loan payments higher than most people pay in rent each month, you tend to forget why it is that you went to law school or ever wanted to be a lawyer in the first place. This is especially the case when you turn on the television and the latest commercial for a show about lawyers features footage of hungry sharks in a feeding frenzy. The Beacon on the Hill: Mother of Sorrows Church sits atop Paddy Hill in Greece, New York. It is the highest peak in my hometown. From this vantage point, you can see civilization carved out of the orchards below and the community seems to radiate from the church. Mother of Sorrows is the oldest church in the area, and my mother told me that Catholic missionaries built it amidst an Iroquois village. She said that the lantern at the top of the steeple served as a guide to settlers, so if I was ever lost, I should simply aim for the steeple light and it would guide me home. Life in the Backseat of Grandma’s Car: I learned most of life's important lessons from the back seat of my grandmother's 1968 lime green Ford Fairlane. My grandmother was a first generation Italian-American and child of the depression who believed no task was so banal that the family could not enjoy it, together. Thus, even in weather prompting public service warnings about the dangers of leaving your pet in a sweltering car, my grandmother would stuff all four of her granddaughters into the back seat and take us around town on her errands.
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