Ngoc's Corner of Language Arts 10th

At the end of the book, Moehringer's life turns around. However, his life was turned around through a lot of tragedies as well as events that forced it. These events included his money problem, the deaths of many significant figures in his life, allowing himself to move on, and through the influence of the video that Sheryl sent to him. At the beginning and throughout the middle of the story, Moehringer's life had been revolved around the bar and focused on it. To begin, Moehringer had been experiencing a problem with money. Steve handed him a stack of checks that J.R. had cashed at the bar over the summer and all of them said Insufficient Funds. Steve let him by, realizing that it was a mistake by Moehringer in his times of disorganization, but J.R. (Moehringer), insisted that he paid him back Steve's message, "This isn't the kind of man you want to be" (334). engraved in J.R.'s head and changed his life forever. This had a kind of two side effect on J.R. It prospered his love for Steve, but at the same time tried to pull him away from the bar.Eventually Steve was paid back by Moehringer and there relationship stayed prosperous throughout. However, Steve was a heavy drinker and one day passed out because he was intoxicated. They carried him home, and later to the hospital where he died. Steve's death marked an end to the bar influence's on Junior's life. Steve was the owner of the bar and kept it going, keeping people in and entertaining them as well as helping them out. However, when Steve, the owner of the parental figures in his life as well as the parental figure in his life had passed away, he left the bar for good and the bar closed down without Steve's guidance. From this point on, Junior's life changed dramatically. However, this worked in hand with the VCR tape that Sheryl had sent him. Apparently Sheryl had gotten married and sent him a video that changed his aspect on his life. The video was of his birth to when he was nine months old. He stated, "My mother looked at her nine-month-old son, then gazed straight ahead, at me, her drunken twenty-five-year-old son. I felt caught, as if she were peeing into the future and seeing what became of me" (345). This video made him realized what had become of him and from their on he sought changed. The video reminded him of what he used to be and why he ended up like this. It made him come up with an idea, "All this searching and longing for the secret of being a good man, and all I needed to do was follow the example of one very good woman" (346). We see that from this point, he wasn't looking for a fatherly figure in his life, but trying to follow a motherly figure that his mom had set for him. Because of this, he was able to allow himself to move on, from Sidney, from the Publicans bar, and from his old, past life.

The book, however, ends with him leaving the TIMES magazine company and going to Harvard. It marks the successful end part of his life and a new beginning. On September 11, 2001 a dramatic event changed his life. The attacks on the World Trade Center had killed off people he had known from Yale as well as Bartenders. Aside from this, his family had split up after a dispute between his mom and McGraw's mom after both his grandparents died in 1997. We were also told that he is now a reporter and that he still kept contact with the Publicans people, however he didn't let the bar interfere with his career, nor his liofe. His last words in trying to find a place to interview for his article were "There's a place my friends and I like to go.", "Do you remember where the old Publicans used to be?" (368).