On the Rainy River

“On The Rainy River”
First of all Tim O’Brien starts off at home on a cloudy, humid day in June of 1968. He had just graduated from Macalester College and had plans to go on to Harvard with a full ride scholarship. On this cloudy day of June Tim received a letter in the mail, a letter drafting him to a war he hated. Tim was only 21 years old at the time and full of ambition to be something great, and to proceed on to college and make a life for himself. At dinner that night at home with his parents his father asked him what his plans were, and his response was “nothing”, “wait” (page 40). Tim worked at an Armour meatpacking plant in his home town of Worthington, Minnesota in the summer of 1968 (page 40). His job at the meat plant was the Declotter; someone who removed the blood clots out of the necks of dead pigs.
One day at the meat plant he felt something break in his chest. It scared him and it was painful. He immediately left work and went home. Tim held himself together as best as he could, while he took a shower and pack a suit case. He wrote a note to his parents, something like “Taking off, will call, love Tim” (page 44). He got in his car and drove north. Tim had been contemplating whether of not to flee to Canada or not since mid-July. Canada was only an eight hour drive away and would save him from the war, and possibly save his life.
Towards the afternoon of the next day Tim started looking for somewhere to rest and came across a place called the Tip Top Lodge. The lodge had eight little yellow cabins closely together next to the rainy river. The main building was between a cluster of pine trees, with an odd lean toward Canada. The man who owned the little lodge was Elroy Berdahl. Elroy was a short, skinny, balding eighty-one year old man. The man took Tim in with no questions ask, while Tim stayed there for six days. Tim and Elroy ate together, and did various activities together. They played games, took hicks, read, went fishing, and Tim helped Elroy with maintenance jobs around the grounds. Elroy never asked any questions, and Tim never told him why he was there. They spent six days together soaking up each other’s company without asking the obvious. Tim still didn’t know whether or not he was going to run away to Canada or not, and was a frantic mess in the mean time. One night at dinner Tim asked what he owed the man so far for his hospitality, and the total came out to be 260 dollars. Tim said that was reasonable but would have to be leaving the next day. With that said Elroy clapped his hands together and told him that he would have to pay him for the labor that Tim put in around the grounds, and he figured that he owed Tim 375 dollars. Elroy subtracted what Tim owed him from the 375 dollars and determined he owed Tim 215 dollars. Elroy pulled four fifties out of his pocket and paid it on the table, Tim refused the money but Elroy snuck it to Tims room away with a note that said “Emergency Fund” (page 51).
On the sixth day Tim and Elroy went out on the lake to fish. Tim realized after awhile that somewhere down the river they had passed the Canada border. Elroy stopped the boat at a spot he had felt was appropriate and cast his line. They sat in silence, and all Tim could think about was how this would be the perfect opportunity to jump out and swim to the Canadian shore. Tim sat in the boat thinking out both choices, and then he saw his parents faces on the shore line, then the towns people, and then all the people of his life. This made Tim start to cry. He was crying at the thought of shaming his family and friends and being a coward. Elroy did not say a word at all about Tim crying, but just kept fishing. Tim made his decision he would go to war and kill, or be killed, for himself and his family. When they got back to the lodge they ate dinner and Tim told Elroy he would be leaving in the morning. The next morning they ate their last meal together and then Tim went and packed. Elroy had disappeared in his truck at some point while Tim was packing. Tim washed the dishes and left the 200 hundred dollars on the kitchen table before he got in the car to make the long drive back home, then to Vietnam, then home again.
Tim was scared of the war, scared of dying, but most of all disgracing his family. Making the decision to stay and be drafted off to war was a decision for not wanting to be a coward in all he knows eyes. “I would go to the war- I would kill and maybe die- because I was embarrassed not to” (page 57). Even though Tim did not agree with the war, he didn’t want to embarrass himself or family. When it came down to it, his family’s opinion of him outweighed any fear of the war he had. He survived the war and made it back home, still without a happy ending. He was still a coward in his own. He went to the war, not for himself, not to defend our country, but just not to show his own cowardness and embarrassments to the world.


 
Work Cited
O’Brien Tim. The Things They Carried. New York. Mariner Books, 1990. Print.



Video from youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oluzMNM0HT4