Sam’s Walking Tour By Pauline ZHOU
Sam
Words Checked: 3483 Words in Oxford 3000: 95%
Synopsis This book is about Sam’s life, which contains some stories that happened on him, maybe would make you laugh and maybe would make you cry. They are about love between families, friends and lovers.
I could not know what the end of Sam’s story or your story is, because the lives are continuing unaware and it means “Endless and Everlasting.”
Introduction to the Author Pauline ZHOU, is the student in Wenzao, 37th English Class A minored French, Number 26.
Love to read and study, but
hate to have examinations.
Love to do
sports, but love to be lazy.
Want to be
healthy, but always stay up late.
A cute,
gentle girl but has a lot of not-so-good habits.
To begin writing this novel in the
summer, but come through fall and winter, perhaps it will be finished in spring.
Walking tour of Sam
and also walking tour of Pauline‌
Content Introduction to the author ¾ Chapter 1 The birth of Sam．．．．．．P. 1~ P. 4 ¾ Chapter 2 The childhood life of Sam．．P. 5~ P. 10 ¾ Chapter 3 The boy Sam．．．．．．．P. 11~ P. 16 ¾ Chapter 4 The teenager Sam．．．．．．P. 17~ P.21 ¾ Chapter 5 The grown adult Sam．．．．．P.22~ P.28
¾ Chapter 6 Marriage of Sam．．．．．．P.29~ P. 32 ¾ Chapter 7 The end of Sam．．．．．．P.33~ P. 36 ¾ Chapter 8 What I think about Sam．．．P.37~ P. 40
Chapter 1ďź?The Birth of Sam Who is Sam? He is the son of the couple, Joy and Julie. They were from different states in America: Joy was from Washington, and Julie was from Florida. They met in New York City when they were studying in the university, and fell in love at first sight. In 1998, they married. At that time everyone felt very happy that these two people who loved each other so much finally got married. Joy, an engineer in a computer company, lives with his mother, Ms.
1
Brently. After three years of marriage, Julie got pregnant. Their whole family including their friends all felt very pleased about the coming baby. The future-father and mother were the most excited ones, so one day they were talking about the boy’s name, “Julie, I have the names for our baby, if ‘he’ is a boy, let’s call him ‘Sam’, or if ‘she’ is a girl, how about ‘Sue’? ” “I like names composed of three letters,” said Joy. “That’s great, Sam and Sue!” answered Julie. As they decided the name of their son, they felt happy with the
2
coming child and had great hope for him. In March, Joy and Julie’s first child is coming out soon. “He must be a spring-time
boy!”
said
Ms.
Brently
happily, when she and Julie were sitting in the living room chatting. Julie was waiting for Joy to pick her up to go to the hospital for having the examination. The child’s grandma had already used the holiday to do shopping for the baby’s clothing and equipment. This can see how excited grandma is to expect the child. Joy’s ex-high-school classmate, Frank,
3
dropped by one day and he just heard of coming baby. He brought some toys for “him�, and also as a doctor, gave some points for attention to the mom, Julie. Everyone waits excitedly at the coming of Sam.
4
Chapter 2－The childhood life of Sam On 11th March of 2002, a loud-crying boy came to the earth, and his name was “Sam”. He was a little fat baby and his skin looked like Chinese-tofu, white and sparkling.
He
was
so
lovable
that
suddenly there were a lot of guests coming to Joy’s house to chat with Julie and Ms. Brently. In fact, they just wanted to play with cute Sam. Sam was born in this family, which was full of love, so loud laughing was always heard around Joy’s house.
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When Sam was about three years old, a
miserable
thing
happened.
Sam’s
grandma was dying: she got sick and lain on the bed for more than a month. Then one morning, quietly and peacefully, she was gone. All of the neighbors are sad about it, only the little Sam was just unhappy about missing his grandma and had no idea what was happening. His father, Joy was calm and tried to ask his son to pray for his grandma for a while. After the funeral, Joy talked to Julie to say that he felt really sad about his
6
mother’s death. Julie comforted him saying, “I’m also sad for this, but you know what, Jo? It is just a routine of life, and the final destination is death. Every one always thinks that dead people just leave the earth and never come back, but actually they are still standing there seeing us to go on walking our life. Look at Sam, how cute and innocent he is. Maybe we should learn the child’s way of looking at life and death.
It is useless to be
depressed. You must be happy for the reason they are watching us going on and
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secretly helping us.� Although
grandma
could not beside Sam anymore, he would meet other people in his future life. One afternoon, he was playing in the park, and he was looking at the sand castle he had made. Suddenly, a boy was crying and running fast toward Sam. The superb sand castle
was
destroyed
by
the
boy’s
unexpected approach. His name was Fannie, and he just escaped from home because his parents were having quarrel.
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They had some financial problems, and they were discussing with shouting angrily, loudly and noisily. Instead of being angry with the destructor, Sam walked
towards
Fannie
and asked him to come along to rebuild. In a short time, they were happy to become good partners, to walk out and to play together. Fannie was slowly influenced by this joyful boy, so he became nicer and gentler. One year later, when Sam was four, Julie became pregnant with her second
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child. And then the following year, 2006, the Joy’s family added a new member, Sam’s sister, Sue. She was not born healthily, because Julie had been in difficult labor. After Sue’s birth, Sam was always playing in the hospital instead of the park. He could not meet Fannie very often, but the friendship of these two boys was unbreakable.
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Chapter 3ďź?The Boy Sam Sam was now a seven-year-old boy and he was able to do all the house works by himself. He did the great help for his father Joy, because Joy was too busy to do on complicated household chores. Sam
began
to
study in school, and there are a lot of students from other countries,
like
Chinese, French, and Indian... Luckily, Sam and Fannie were in the same class, so
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they always studied together in the library. They also became friends with some of the foreign students. For example, the Chinese student, Gerry, loved to teach others their difficult Chinese words and was always nervous for doing tests. Francois, the French exchange student, loved to chat with other girls, even the beautiful female teachers. He did not pay lots of attentions on studies all the time, so he often got the worst grades in the class. Although he was not so good at getting points, he could use his fluent English to
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talk with people. Among the four students, Sam, Fannie, Gerry and Francois, most of the teachers liked Sam better. He was always the most diligent student in the class, and finished all the homework on time. He did not get the high grades of all the tests but he always smiled at what he had got. In other people’s point of view, they also think that Sam was a great boy, and he truly was. However, there was still something that waited for Sam to face and solve. In third grade, there was tragedy
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astonishing his peaceful and joyful family. While driving to visit Sam’s mother in the hospital, tired Joy hit the tree for dodging a dog . This car accident caused them lose the core of home�it was his father, Joy. This was really a sudden change for his family, because his father was the origin of responsible for the financial income. They not only had to face financial difficulty but also the absent of the center of the family. After knowing this news, the whole family was in the dark mood. Sam was so
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sad that his father would never come back again like his grandma. He did not want to go to school and was crying in his room. Few days later his mother, Julie was still sad but wanted to tell him something, “Now, Sam, don’t be like that. Your father would not want you to be sad. He always wanted you to have hope and persistence for life,’’ said Julie. “Think back your life so far, there are some people coming, like your sister, Sue and your friends, but there are some people leaving. In fact they had never been gone. They are still standing
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there
and
watching
you
continue
walking in life. Maybe you would not be used to it at first, but I believe you would understand later on. Don’t be so depressed, be brave and keep going on,� said Julie. Sam did not understand his mother’s meaning, but he promised her to be brave. At the beginning of fourth grades, Sam got a part-time job to deliver newspapers in the early morning. He liked this job, and he learned to transfer the sadness to be more positive of the new life.
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Chapter 4－The Teenager Sam It is not enough for his family’s large spent although his father did leave some money for them. Sam began to work as a newsboy when he was ten, but he never gave up his study and school life. He was still a good student and did a very good job on studying. He also loved to play baseball after school with his friends. By Sam’s hard working, the money that he earned from the job as newsboy was not enough for his family’s large spending. Fortunately, his mother Julie got a job as a
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secretary by their neighbor’s introduction when Sam was in the junior high school. As Sam was getting older, he felt more responsibility for taking care his mom, his sister, and the whole family. One
day,
a
classmate which was named
Allen
was
from a big and rich family, and he did not like Sam and wanted to make some joke on him. Allen’s joke was not funny at all. He was rude and unpleasant with Sam to say that Sam’s
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father died because of his mother’s extramarital relation with someone else. Sam was extremely angry and he tried to punish this bad boy. Suddenly, the two boy
got
fight.
Teacher
and
other
classmates were shocked and they quickly stopped the fighting. This event was ended when Allen finally said sorry to Sam and promised that he would never make jokes on him again. These days Sam had lived under a kind of difficulty and stress. One night his mother asked to talk to him,� Sam, now
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you become the center of our family, but you are still a child, a student. I hope you can make more efforts on what you really want to do. Stop sending the newspaper and concentrate on your study.� Sam nodded and thanked his mother’s understanding. Sam worked very hard on his study. Very soon, he won scholarships when he was in high school. The money of the scholarships made their life become better. Mother Julie no longer
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had to worry about how to earn more money. Experiencing the sweets and the bitters with his family, with his faithful friends they played; they studied together, and had a good time with each other. Successfully, he graduated and entered the New York University.
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Chapter 5ďź?The Grown Adult Sam The days in University were not funny at all, because they always had many different kinds of reports to discuss, to work on, and to hand in. Passing through the tough first year, Sam now was a second year student in the Department of computer science. In a day of summer, a car
bumped
into
Sam
because he wanted to rescue a little cat from the middle of
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the street. The owner of this cat wanted to thank Sam, and that was how Sam met Merry, the owner of the cat. They fell in love and got together two weeks later. They both loved to read and to walk slowly around the school. Everyone, even themselves thought that they would get married after graduating. However, things did not go so smoothly, they broke up when Sam was in the fourth year. Certainly they once did have loved each other deeply, but in fact this relationship did not suit them. They
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argued and always ended with anger. They did not want to communicate with each other, so their problems were getting bigger and bigger. After three months of their breakup, Merry had a new boyfriend. Although this made Sam really sad and depressed, mother Julie talked to him with a gentle voice, “Little boy, you two are still young, and it is too early to treat her as your future wife. Later, you are always friends.� Sam got through the rest of his university life.
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After graduating he entered a computer company as a computer engineer. It is not a very big company. Although Sam did not get much money but he did the job happily as his interest. At that time, he fell in love with Jane. They had known each other since Sam and Jane was in the university, but Jane was two years older than Sam. They had good time with each other. They often went out for dinner and saw a movie. After four years of hard working, Sam was lucky to get a promotion to be manager of the
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research department. Sam and Jane were planning to get married soon. One day he saw his ex-classmate Allen who was the rich and proud boy he hit before meeting his girlfriend, Jane. He did not ask her the reason why they met often because he was afraid of knowing that Allen was chasing her. Few days later, he saw even the chairperson, Dr. Norton, Allen’s father talking with Jane. He thought that his boss was saying some good word of his son, Allen and wanted Jane to marry him. “What is going on here? SHE is my
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girlfriend!� He did not say a word at that moment. The night he asked Jane agitatedly how she knew Allen and why Dr. Norton kept talking with her. Jane answered with laughing and told him that Dr. Norton was her father and Allen was her younger brother. He had been studying in England since he graduated from junior high and he came back just now to see his sister and father. Knowing the truth, Sam was more relaxed,
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but the other hand he also felt nervous that Jane was the daughter of his boss. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable and thought in mind, ”I am going to merry to the daughter of the boss. How would other people think?
They maybe think that
Sam marries Jane because of her father’s money. No way!” Sam did not know how to solve this situation and he really loved Jane.
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Chapter 6－Marriage of Sam Three days after Sam discovered this truth, the boss asked Sam to have a talk with him. Obviously, Jane had told her father, his boss about their love and their marriage. “I know you really love Jane. I can see in her eyes the happiness of marrying you. Forget other people’s thoughts about your marriage. The most important thing is your true love. Further more I hope you can give her a better life. You two can happily hold each other’s hand and walk together in the rest of
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your life,� said Dr. Norton. Sam thanked Dr. Norton and cheerfully called Jane to tell her that they were really getting married. In the holiday, Sam went back to his hometown with Jane to tell his family about this brilliant
good
news.
Mother Julie said to this new couple, “Now I look at you just like the time before I and Joy were getting married. I am so happy for you, and for myself. I can watch my boy getting married before I
30
leave. This is the most wonderful thing in the world.
Thanks God.�
In the springtime of 2030, the wedding of Sam and Jane took place. Everybody has his/ her smile on the face and all the things looked so beautiful and joyful. All Sam’s friends came to attend his
wedding.
Fannie
now
was
a
psychologist, and also a doctor; Gerry was an archaeologist who worked in China; Francois was a famous teacher in America who was popular among high school girls. Sam was happy to see
31
his old friends again and got a beautiful wife. They happily lived together and there seemed no troubles in their life forever. Unfortunately, their first baby was dead in his mother’s womb. They were miserably sad until successfully their twin babies were born later.
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Chapter 7－The End of Sam Time flies. Today is the 20th anniversary of Sam and Jane’s marriage, and
today
is
also
Sam’s
birthday.
Everybody are invited to have a party in Sam’s house. His son grew up, and he is sure to be the most handsome and kind boy in the town. The most beautiful girl no doubt is Sam’s daughter, Susan, and she looks like the younger one of her mother. Every thing is going fine. It is also the happiest point of Sam’s whole life. He
33
is the owner of the Norton Computer Company after Jane’s father died in 2039. Sam’s mother also died two years after Jane’s father died. Sam is thinking back of his life in the armchair in his study room. “My life was full of a lot of accidents in
it.
They
happened
unexpectedly.
Sometimes I feel shocked and surprised; sometimes I couldn’t accept it, like my father and mother’s death, even my first child’s death. How could I go through these bad days? It is because of the words that mom told me when father died. “It is
34
the routine of life, and death is the destination of it.” Sam thought for a while, “The death should be a destination? Can’t it be the beginning? Maybe they really stand there waiting for us and we will meet each other one day then have a whole new life.” While thinking, he feels very comfortable and falls asleep. In his dream, there are a lot of events which had happened in life: his birth, grandma’s death, Sue’s birth, father’s death, then children’s birth, Jane’s father’s death, and mom’s death… All the good
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time, the bad time of it, they are all passed now and Sam felt peaceful. Maybe sometimes when we are getting older, we sit in a comfortable armchair and think back the time in our life. There are a lot of people we meet, but maybe they are not still there just by our sides. They are always right there in our heart to look at us and encourage us to continue walking on.
36
Chapter 8－What I think about Sam
“Sam’s Walking Tour”, I think not only Sam but also everybody’s walking tour. Some people’s life is short, maybe twenty years, ten year or even one year. There are lots of people we meet in our lives, including parents, grandparents, brothers,
sisters,
friends,
classmates,
coworkers, lovers, husband/wife, sons, daughters,
relatives,
strangers. Some of them are maybe still by
our
sides
and 37
neighbors
and
taking care of us but we could not always see them. However, some of them would leave us and disappear from the earth. In fact, all these people we meet would all stay right there and watch us continuing to go on our lives. Then, maybe one day, it is your turn to leave. Do not be sad! What you should do is smiling and it is your turn to stay there watching others continuing their own lives. Maybe I say it in a very easy way, but it is a kind of hard to do. When all these events happen, for example
38
someone died or someone is born, the processes contain a lot of crying and laughing. They all could be the touching and happy ones or the heartbroken and miserable ones. I wrote this book about Sam’s life, which contains some stories that happened on him, maybe would make you laugh and maybe would make you cry. They are about love between families, friends and lovers.
Is
the
touching you?
story
Maybe I
did not write a good
39
story, but I try really hard. Thanks for your appreciation of “Sam’s Walking Tour”. Thank you. The last sentence I want to remind you is — I could not know what the end of Sam’s story or your story is, because the lives are continuing unaware and it means “Endless and Everlasting”
40
Synopsis This book is about Sam’s life, which contains some stories that happened on him, maybe would make you laugh and maybe would make you cry. They are about love between families, friends and lovers.
I could not know what the end of Sam’s story or your story is, because the lives are continuing unaware and it means “Endless and Everlasting.”