BRIEF SAMPLE ETHOS STORIES FROM THE WEB:
1. These are a little shorter than what I’m asking you to do.
2. As you read, ask yourself what ethos the writer is trying to create for herself or himself. – RC
The Swingset
I had a walkman and a swingset. We lived out in the country. I would take my walkman, tune into my favorite radio station and crank up the volume until I couldn't hear anything else, and swing for hours. I would sing at the top of my lungs, swing high, throughout sunset and into the night and swing up towards the stars, like I was going to blast off into them. Typing this out makes it sound so simple and boring, but it was just a wonderful "zen" spot I could go to and tune out the world.
My swingset back then was metal. It rusted, broke down, and had to be torn down when I was 13. I adapted to no swingset, but I always mentioned how amazing it felt to swing at night with nothing in my head but good music and my parents listened.
On my 19th birthday, they bought and set up a swing set for me as a joke. They thought I would laugh it off. Nope. I'd take my phone out there, snap in headphones/earbuds, and swing. It really wasn't the same - the swings were low and I was taller, so every 'to and fro' motion I had to make sure to pull my legs up, but it was still nice and I often would be found out there.
I have a house now with my SO, in the city. I go outside to our bench-style porch swing and it's nice, but I can hear cars, see our neighbors, and it just all ends up feeling congested. There are no stars at night, either. I think back to those nights of nothing but music and crickets, bullfrogs, and the occasional soft whistle of a train, should a north wind chance by at the right time. I just wish I could capture that "everything is just calm, natural and perfect" feeling like I had back then.
Lean On Me
So I was hanging out with a couple friends in a little village-style outdoor mall that's pretty popular in my city. Without warning, a massive group of people turned the corner onto the street and started walking down it together at a brisk pace. Not a flash mob, no one's shirtless, just a group of what had to be three or four hundred people all walking together, and as they're walking the ones on the fringes of the train are calling out to passersby to join in. There's no indication of where the group is going or why, and no one is explaining themselves or holding signs or anything.
We're near the end of the street, watching more and more people latch onto the group out of sheer curiosity as it moves en masse towards us, and I said, "Fuck it, let's go." So we tacked on to the side of the train and followed it for ten minutes or so into the heart of the mall, where there's a small park with a sculpture garden and a fountain. By that point there were way too many people to come close to fitting in the park. I would estimate at least a goddamn thousand packed together.
The guy who was leading the parade approached this young woman who was sitting on one of the benches there, who was looking pretty bewildered at being surrounded by hundreds of strangers. Another young guy who was with him, sort of a ringleader type, turned to face "us" as a group and started to shout-sing "Lean On Me." With no idea what was going on, the rest of the group joined in until there were enough people to fill an auditorium all singing Lean On Me together to this complete stranger of a girl in the park. We got about a minute in (to the end of the second chorus) before the guy's friend shushed us by raising both hands, and everyone went dead silent.
Then the guy who was leading the parade got on one knee and proposed to the girl. She said yes. Everyone cheered and dispersed, more or less.
It's one of my favorite memories, just because of the sense of being part of something greater, for no reason except that we were all human. With no idea where we were going or why, we still joined the parade of people and sang to this guy's wife-to-be, because it was a good thing to do.
Senior Discount Wednesday
I'm a manager at a grocery store, so I get awesomely rude customers on a daily. Every Wednesday is senior discount day. You have to be 55-60 to qualify for the discount. Needless to say, Wednesdays are tense. Lots of seniors, and lots of other people who don't want to deal with the seniors. I don't generally mind the old folks. Most of them are pretty cool and have some interesting stories and cute jokes.
This Wednesday there was one particular customer who was being a huge pain in the ass from the moment she walked in. She was tall, blonde, high heels, very made up, and dressed to the nines. She was probably late 30s to early 40s. She came storming up to customer service, "There are NO parking spots. This is ridiculous. I'm going to request to corporate that you expand your parking lot, since you don't seem to have the initiative to request that yourself." Off to a great start, lady. She comes storming back up about 45 minutes later. "I am in a HUGE hurry, and every line has someone in it. I need to check out here." We had three lines open, and each one had ONE single customer. ONE. I say "No problem, but I'll get you at a checkout. You have too many items to get here." She has a HUGE hissy fit. "I don't have time for this. Let's GO."
As I'm checking her out, it is constant bitching. "You only have one brand of makeup? That is ridiculous. I only wear MAC, but I was going to settle for Revlon, but you don't even have that. Now I have to make a whole separate trip." "Please don't put my bread on top of my eggs, the eggs could roll over and crush the bread." "Please bag my avocados separately; I need to use those for a face mask tonight. They need to be perfect, I have a photo session for work tomorrow. I'm in a magazine." She was unbelievable. Finally, at the end, I had enough.
As she's about to pay, I say, "Don't forget today is senior discount day! You get 5% off!" She just stared at me. "What?" I smiled broadly. "Every Wednesday, senior citizens get 5% off their bill. I'll go ahead and take it off. You are 55-60, right?" She is staring at me, debit card in hand, cheeks getting red. I lose my smile slowly and say "Oh, you don't qualify? Sorry about that. Maybe next year! Thanks for your honesty."
I haven't seen her in the store since.
Hanging with the Cool Kids
I was 13, had just started high school, and was still very very naive. I had just recently begun being invited to hang out with the "cool kids" after school thanks to an upperclassman I'd befriended in my biology class.
On the day my health class learned all about cancer, I went out with my new cool friends to sit around in a parking lot and eat ice cream. When my friend lit up a cigarette in front of me, I burst into tears and said I didn't want him to die, and didn't he ever think about how his family would feel? He stubbed out the cigarette to stop me crying, and instead we took a walk across a construction site (because that's so much safer than smoking).
A month later, I noticed I hadn't seen him in a week. I shrugged it off, thinking he was sick or his parents took him on a trip. When 2 weeks passed without any sign of him, I started getting worried and asked around. Rumors were, he was in an institution. I called his parents for his contact info and asked his parents to send him a CD he'd asked to borrow from me. They said they'd give it to him, but sorry he wasn't allowed to talk on the phone or anything. Then they thanked me profusely for being such a good friend. Ok... it's just a cd, but you're welcome?
After the 3rd week of his absence, he called me to let me know he was home, and would I like to hang out with him at the coolest local hangout after school? His parents picked me up and dropped us off, he thanked me for the cd, and we talked about music. Then after an awkward silence, he looked at me really seriously and said, "No, I really need to thank you. You saved my life." I was completely confused; it was just a cd!
Apparently the reason he was gone for 3 weeks was because he'd been checked into rehab. He'd been doing cocaine and heroin (where the hell does a 15 year old get this stuff??), and the sight of my innocent little heart shedding tears over his impending death by cigarette made him re-think how his lifestyle might affect his friends and family. He started going to NA, going to school more often, all that jazz - though he didn't quit smoking.
Years later, after we'd both drifted apart and graduated high school, I ran into him outside a restaurant. He looked overjoyed to see me, and took me over to his table to introduce me to his fiancee. He told her that I'd saved his life, and if it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't be the man he was today. It was super embarrassing, but I was glad he'd been able to turn his life around. Every once in a while, I still hear from him; he has 2 kids with his wife, and he let me know recently that he'd finally quit smoking.
The Tofanaschuss
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here, Olympic skier Picabo Street describes the Olimpia delle Tofana course at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Shortly after the start of the race, the skiers enter a steep, straight stretch called the Tofanaschuss:
You drop over the Tofanaschuss, which is--put it this way, my trainers ski around it. It's pretty fast. It's the funnest part for me. It's very steep, extremely steep. And then you make a big fat turn goin' probably, probably almost 80 miles an hour. You launch off this jump and you just have to accept the fact that you're flying out by the fence and try and maintain your form. And once you get down that, you're screamin'. It ends up sidehill as you finish your turn because the centrifugal force is pulling you. So you've got to hold, hold, hold. And then you dive in and you've got one-two-three huge super G turns that are just monsters. You can feel yourself just jet out of every turn: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! You come out of that third turn and you're probably back up around 70 again. And you got to go up on that bank and dive into this big double turn, and the G-forces at the bottom of that turn are HUGE. You've got to make it over to this little zigzag, and all it wants to do is suck you down into that fence.
The bottom of the zag is kind of an icy, droppy turn, and then you sneak over this next knoll down through the roller-coaster section. You make one little jag and then you go straight down the flat. You go through the speed trap there and you're hittin' 80 per hour, or something like that. Plus, you're like turning on the side of a basketball. And then you get radical. You switch your downhill ski way down. You lift your uphill ski way up. And you drive in the most aggressive counter position over this knoll that you can't see. And then it's straight down to the finish. When you drop over the last little pitch this year, there was like a divot. If you weren't in the right line of balance, that divot would pop you open. That was why I didn't win that first one, because I got popped open. So I swung a little bit wider in the beginning of the turn and was in a really sweet spot, where I could just dive into the finish.
And I reached across the finish line. When I saw my time, I thought, "Whooooaaa." That's pretty fast time, you know, for this course.