Biography of Place- The Farm

For my Biography of Place essay, I’m going to write about my grandparents berry farm, which has since been passed down to my family.  It is in a rural area in Virginia so the communities that are part of the farm consist mostly of nature and animals. There’s an abundance of fruits, eagles, deer, foxes and ground hogs. The farm is something that brings my family together to relax and get away from the stress of work and traffic that comes with living near D.C. The freedom that comes with being on such a large piece of land and the ability to roam around on the ATV, picking berries and exploring is something that makes the farm special to me. The farm also has a lot of history beyond my grandparents. When building their house, they discovered Indian bones and relics (pottery parts, arrowheads etc.) Across the Rappahannock River, which surrounds the farm, is Fort A.P. Hill, a place used for military training and we often hear the firing of guns. It is said that Captain John Smith traveled up the Rappahannock River and on the land. My grandfather donated a part of the farm to the Nature Conservancy in honor of my grandmother. On that land they found evidence of an old plantation home that had a brick making facility.

Biography of Place- Hanging Lakes

From the time I was a baby until I was in my late teens, I used to go to Glenwood Springs with my family every summer for a long weekend. During our trip, we would take the long, beautiful hike up to Hanging Lakes. At the top of the trail there is a crystal clear lake with a towering waterfall. I haven’t been back there in years, but this past summer I tried to go with my dad while we were in Vail for the weekend. Unfortunately, the roadway in was a parking lot and we got word the trail had become overcrowded and miserable to hike recently. I plan to research the history of Hanging Lakes and explore the relationship between preservation and tourism in our national parks and protected lands.

Biography of Place Proposal

Close to every summer of my childhood, I traveled with my grandparents to Tioga, North Dakota for a couple of weeks. My grandparents grew up in a small town nearby and still go back to visit their families and friends. Despite not having lived there for 50+ years, they still refer to North Dakota as “home.” This town is a place that epitomizes summer for me, and seems to exist only within that season. However, the older I got the less I connected with it and I didn’t travel there as much. Now the town of Tioga almost makes me appreciate my hometown more and respect the differences between my extended family and my immediate family. Especially over the past few years, North Dakota has been plagued by various political hardships with an emphasis on oil. There are several people in my family who deal with these controversies on a daily basis, and so I believe I will have lots of material to easily research. I look forward to exploring what this place means to me personally as well as the social aspects that effect the land and inhabitants.

Culloden Battlefield

  My topic for the Biography of Place is the battle of Culloden, fought in 1745 in the highlands of Scotland.  My discussion will touch on the complex route that brought me to that battlefield on a cold February day in 2006.  I will explore the fictional book that inspired my interest in Scottish history in general (and the Jacobite rising in particular), the history of the culminating battle that largely destroyed the culture of the Scottish highlanders, and the physical landscape that remains almost unchanged to this day.  My direct interaction with this landscape was very short, but it did have a lasting impact on me.

Jenean Roberts

Keith Andres Park

                                   Andres Park is named after SPC Keith John Andres
                                Keith was killed in action in Vietnam on November 2nd, 1967


My Biography of place will be on Keith Andres park. While I was stationed in Chicago I used to run by a park that was about 25 acres in size. It was enclosed by thick overgrown trees and bushes. There was an entrance from one side of the park which on one occasion I decided to enter.  There was graffiti, trash, and it seemed the park had many years of neglect. It needed some help. Surrounding the park, was a lower income neighborhood, and on my runs I saw many children playing in the streets and houses. I thought about how unsafe this park seemed, so I got to work trying to figure out how to make the area mutually beneficial for the community, and  the young people I was training at the time. What  happened would be the beginning of a proud journey for me and many who worked with me. Since that time I am curious what has become of the park we adopted, and how it has changed. I will write about events 10 years ago, and what has happened to the park since my time there.

Nature and Nature . . .

From what I understand about internal and external landscapes (and the truth in a metaphorical way) build a good story according to Barry Lopez.  More specifically a external landscape is the back ground and the fore ground, basically its everything around the subject.  But its more than everything in the scene other than the subject, external landscapes are about the relationship between the things that compose the scene.  When I'm walking to class after a fresh snow, the external landscape isn't just the snowcapped mountains, the setting sun, and screaming lacrosse players.  It is the way the setting sun reflects off the mountains and snow and turns the sky purple, the external landscape has to do with way the screams are drowned out by crunch of snow under my foot.  Internal Landscape on the other hand is a whole different ball game.  The internal landscape has to do with the subject and his or her components of character formed by the external landscape molding the subject overtime.  A good stories internal landscape should bring perspective to the actions and motives of the subject.  The internal landscape has to do with the anxiety driving me to step aggressively into the snow as I await the consequences of my procrastination.  Internal landscape brings clarity as to why the external landscape has such an effect on the subject.  At least thats what I derived from this reading.

External and internal landscapes

External landscapes are physical world. What we can see and perceive to be there. Internal landscapes are the opposite, it's the way an individual interprets a situation. Internal landscapes look more based on top down processing and the way in interacts with the external landscape and external ones are based on bottom up processing alone. Two people can look at a single external landscape but get two very different internal landscapes from it.
This concept reminds me of the top down vs bottom up processes that I have learned in all of my 4 psychology courses including the one I'm in right now, cognitive psych. Top down is when your mind shapes your perception of a stimulus, while bottom up is allowing you to experience a stimulus and perceive it the same way.