Rising+from+the+Plains+II+-+JH

Rising from the Plains II -- Jessica Holt

This is the second article in a three part series that John McPhee writes for the New Yorker. Originally I thought this piece was going to be about geology for the most part from how Professor Hunt had discussed some of the original reactions to the first few pages of the article. It turns out that the part of the article I read was mostly a biography of the live of a man named David Love. It explained his lifestyle that he had while on Love Ranch. An example was that in order to keep warm we would insulate his boots with the New York Times newspaper and it was not uncommon for the first thing to ask a neighbour if they had any newspaper! He also talked about him growing up and his basic education that did not seem to consist of much. He adds in a lot of trivial information when he is explaining that young boys do not have much of an attention span. One example of this is when he recalls a reason for class stopping “they were carrying in a cowboy with guts ripped out by a saddle horn. The lessons stopped, the treadle stopped, and she sewed the cowboy up” (46). This is not really necessary information but it adds a bit more to the story and keeps the reader interested. Then he tells about the different types of days that can be encountered on Love Ranch, some full of intense activity, snow, freezing cattle, etc. Other days can be very nice and calm. He also tells that many murderers have been visitors of David Love family’s ranch. I liked the story he told about Bill Grace, it showed the adolescence at its finest, ignoring the rules and guidelines set forth by parents and seeing what trouble they could stir up with a person that you should not be eager to anger. Then he goes on to talk about David getting married and being worth a large amount of money. He proceeds to talk about him and his brother going to university and towards the end of the article he starts explaining David Love’s passion for geology and exploration. He tells about his adventures to different mountains to collect fossils, data and information for his research. He sets up different camps at the bottom of these mountains so he has a place to do his research. McPhee gives the reader a little background on geology and some of the different terminology so we are not lost by what David is doing. I found this article pretty interesting as it explained the life of a man who had quite a different upbringing from my own. I am always intrigued by other cultures and social settings other than my own and how their affect on the people in them. I also found that I wasn’t as confused by McPhee’s descriptiveness in this article because most of the added information he was stories of David’s life. I might continue the story and read onto part 3!