Introduction to “Awareness of Audience and Voice”

Unit Three was a challenge of assumptions. The blog assignment, “You are what you eat” is the lucky selection. It genesis was the analysis of Keillor’s essay, “A Wobegon Holiday Dinner” which spoke of typical scenarios you would expect to see on an old sitcom like Seinfeld or All in the Family. It was riddled with gender bias roles of women cooking and men waiting to eat. This piece challenged old and new traditions like a crash course of two trains on the same track. There was such a negative undertone to this particular essay, probably based on my own bias and generation. Wanting to escape seemed to be the theme and my spin on this particular essay, “Traditions End and Begin” tried to address some past and present. Fond memories are my theme but with recognition of the present…my children’s views of seeing how many friends they can visit on Thanksgiving as well as how many meals they can consume. Since being labeled the old out of touch guy, they are required to at least start with us at the table. Traditions are changing, but at least they will have a baseline to initiate the change that will someday become their traditions. They continue to roll their eyes, quietly of course, but always mention how warm everything feels while at home; with the traditional, conventional, and generational Thanksgiving dinner.