OP-ED

            I think there should be shorter school hours.  I think this because I don’t care for school very much and I have to wake up to early to get ready for school.  For example, in high school we have to wake up at 5-6 o’clock to get ready and get to school on time.  I say this because I normally have to wake up at 6:15 to get ready for school.  Some kid that goes to this school has to wake up at 5:00 just to get up and get dressed and go to school.

            I think school should start at maybe 10:30, so that gives us more time to sleep and allows us to eat something so we can think in the morning.  Also, I think they should’ve done the same thing the concentration camps in Germany.  I say this because so many Jews and Germans were killed in these camps.  The reason they all died was because they had to wake up very early, work for 12-16 hours straight and only get small rations of food.

            I think that school should only be 4 hours instead of 8 hours, and that in the concentration camps it should’ve been half a day instead of a full day.  They also should have gotten more food than what they normally got everyday.  That’s why I think school should have shorter school hours and why concentration camps, back then, should have been half days.

This I Believe Essay

             It was a weird and crazy baseball season for me.  The weather has gone from raining like a rain storm to as hot as desert.  The field we normally practiced on was flooded.  It looked like a hurricane came in and destroyed the field, so our choices for practice that night were to either go to a different field, which is about five to ten minutes away from our normal practice field, or go home.  More than half of the team decided to go home and a quarter of the team didn’t answer.  The only people that chose to practice were this kid named Jason, who was 2 years older than me, and me.  I chose to practice because I was one of the worst players on the team and I was also the youngest.  Our coach had the final call and that was who ever wanted to practice go to the Westy Baseball Fields.  The Westy Fields were nice and had no water on them what so ever.  The 5 kids that showed up were all older and better than me.  So when I came up to bat I saw everyone move in from the outfield to the edge of the grass where it met the warm dusty dirt.  At that time I lost all my self confidence and said to myself I am a bad player.  As I walked up to the batters box, my coach said something.

            “Come on Z-Rex, let’s go now, take a couple deep breathes and put the bat on the ball.” He said with confidence. 

            “You can do it Zach,” said my dad in the back-ground.

I took a deep breathe, focused on the ball, and tried my best to make contact.  During my time up at bat I noticed that every ball I hit was either a lousy fly ball or a hard hit ground ball.  After I hit 7 in a row, I missed 3 fastballs that were right down the middle. That went better than any other time I went up for batting practice.  I had the smallest amount of hits that night with 7 hits.  Everybody else had 8, 9, or 10 hits.  Before practice ended coach wanted to see who could pitch.  Other than playing first base that was my favorite position to play, so I went up and pitched about twenty pitches.  About 13 o ver since that game I have gotten at least five inside the park homeruns and about twenty-five doubles and about ten triples.  After that week that’s why I BELIEVE practice makes you better. 

 f those 20 were within the strike zone. 

“Great job son, you looked good at pitching and that’s that best I’ve seen you hit all year,” my dad said as I got into the car.

“Thanks, but I could do better at batting and possibly pitching if I keep practicing,” I replied back

“Well I will keep you to that, and even if you only do it for ten minutes, you will gradually get better,” he said with a smile.

  Our best pitcher was Jason, who could throw the hardest and was the most accurate.  If we were on different teams, I would not want to bat against him, because when he pitched it looked like a fireball was coming at you. 

After practice our coach told us that our season was going to start in a week in a half.  With in that time period, I have practiced pitching, catching, and hitting so that I would get to play more than what I was playing now.  I did this over and over everyday of the week, before our season started because I wanted to play, and I did this because baseball is and will be my favorite sport of all time.  I also did this so I would be ready for anything and everything.  So every day, that week, after practice or even before practice, I would go outside or stay at the field and practice for an extra half an hour to an hour before or after our original practice. 

            As the week passed, I got better at baseball and became the five-hole hitter instead of the nine-hole.  In this part of the line-up, the pitcher wasn’t so tired so most of the pitches that were pitched to me were in the strike zone and not on the ground or 2 to 3 feet outside of the strike zone.  Also while I was in this spot in the line-up I hit a lot more balls then I thought I would that year.

Place Essay

Grandmas House

Zachery Greer

Period: 1

10-7-10

            “This is so boring.” I said to my mom

            “Well your going to have to deal with it for now.” She replies

I was bored in the state of the boring and smelly Nebraska.  I could smell the cow manure from the time we got into Nebraska, to the time we just got out of Nebraska and into Iowa.  Before I tell you about Iowa, I will tell you about Nebraska.  While we were in Nebraska we stayed at the biggest hotel in my life. It was the RAMADA INN and it was fun.  The hotel room was about the size of our living room and they had a pool in the shape of a deformed peanut, that had a little island in the middle that everyone tried to get to, but it was blocked off with a bright red door that reached up to about my waist.   I was with my brother when we were swimming and us together were having fun like two puppies and a brand new chew toy.  When got to swim for about thirty minutes before we had to go to bed and wake up at 4:30 to get to my grandma’s house during the middle of the day. 

At about 12:00, we finally reached the city in which my grandma lived.  The city was named FOREST CITY.  It was named that because when it was first discovered, it looked like an actual forest.  It then eventually became the city it is today. When we got to our grandma’s house, we were trying to be as sneaky as we possibly could.  So when we got to the side of her house where, there was a window that she was able to see out of, my brother and I both rolled like a steam roller on pavement.  It hurt, but that didn’t stop us from surprising our grandma.  As we reached the old creaking steps, my brother and I decided to just hop to the deck, and it was only a two-step staircase, so it wasn’t very hard to accomplish.  When we got to the door, we opened it like a robber trying to get into some rich persons house.  When we opened the door and got into the house, we heard our grandma say something. 

“Where are the boys?” my grandma asked.

“Oh they’re just acting like ninjas, oh and there they are.” My mom said as she was giving our grandma a big hug and kiss.  As we quietly snuck up to our grandma, like a cat about to attack a mouse, we gave her a big hug and kiss. 

“My oh my have you gotten bigger since the last time I saw you!” she said to me as she gave me a little nudge on the arm.

“And you,” she was saying to my brother, “you have gotten bigger yourself also!” as she gave him the same thing as me.

We were all happy to see her, because none of us have seen her for about 2 years. As we spent time with her and stayed at her house for three days, all we did was stay at the house and talked and caught up and some stuff that happened in the last couple of years.  The days passed by and the time flied by.  The last 2 days we were there, we went to the city of FAIRBANK, that’s where some of my family lives.  They had pigs, cows, and rabbits.  They had a huge farm for all these animals and they had crops the size of Texas.  Ok not really, but when you were standing outside in front of the crops, they looked big.  We helped with the animals and crops while we were there.  We got to feed the massive cows and ride the RANGER to get around the crops to get all the food that was ready to get picked. 

 When our week passed by of meeting with the family and gaining on the stuff they didn’t talk about in 2 years, it was a blast and we had so much fun just spending time with family. 

One Moment in Time CFD

                                                ALL-STAR PLAYER                                     

Zachery Greer

                                                                                                                                                9-10-10

            It was an awesome baseball game for me.  There were many different ages on the team I was on.  There were ages 7-10.  I was the oldest at the age of 10.  I was also the biggest on the team.  I only knew 3 kids on that team, and those were my brother, Jake, and Darren.  Darren was the second biggest kid on the team, and was also a pitcher just like me.  The only thing he had over me was the speed on his pitches, but he didn’t have any accuracy.  As the team captain for our first game, coach put me as the starting pitcher.  So I warmed up for about 20 minutes.  Then it came game time.  I was nervous like I never was before.  So the first inning came and I got 1-2-3 outs and that’s what happened to our team in the first inning.  In the bottom of the second inning, I was leading off, on the 2^nd pitch in the at bat, I hit a double.  So I scored to make it 1-0 game.  In the top of the 3^rd inning, I gave up 2 hits.  In about the 5^th inning I came up to bat again and this time the bases were loaded and I hit an inside the park grand slam.  I made the score 5-0 with one inning to go.  In the last inning I gave up 1 more hit and after that the game was over.  With the final score 5-0, we won.  I got 15 out of18 people out either with strikeouts or just normal outs.  After the talk the coach had with us I got the game ball and went home to have a victorious lunch.  

One Moment in Time

                                                                        BIG HIT

              Last year in baseball, I was playing with the Ralston Valley Dawgs.  We were

playing the Brighton Yankees that night.  It was a warm and windy night.  So, on our

way to the game, I thought to myself,

“We are going to stomp all over them”.

But when we got there, their team looked pretty descent.  When it came game time, we

got pumped and got loud for everyone of our batters when they got up.  It was a good

game. Then in the 7^th inning the game got even better for our team.  It was the top of the 7^th and our lead off batter got walked.  So, with one guy on I came up to bat.  Before I could get into the batters box, someone in the crowd said

“Hit a home run”!

 So, I got into the batters box and got set.  Two pitches later, it was a 0-2 count.  The first pitch I took for a strike.  The second pitch I fouled off.  Then when the third pitch came I CRUSHED it!  So I started running and when I got to first I looked over toward the ball and saw it sail out of the mini green monster fence.  So, as I was trotting around 3^rd base I saw my team there ready to celebrate.  When I got to my team after my home run, my teammates were saying

“Nice hit Z-rex”!

“Way to go”!  

 When I got back into the dugout, everyone was saying good job.  The happiest person in the crowd was my dad.  He was the happiest because his life long dream was for me or my brother to hit a home run.  That’s what I call a “BIG HIT”