Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson

it.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I am also interested in education because we need better schools and no child should be left behind. The children are the future. After I graduate, I will also teach. My town needs a summer camp that doesn’t involve hunting and campingand whittling. Trees have rights, too. It should involve things to prepare you for the real world, like math and science and computers.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  That is why I am applying to ______________. _____________ has the best programs in these majors. Every time I read the paper, I see someone from _____________ being quoted in the news and giving scientific evidence and explanations for how we can make the world a better place for everybody. That’s how I know that ______________ is the school for me.

    Prompt for all applicants:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

    One day I was down at Lou Davis’s Cash-n-Carry Bait Shop and Copy Center, where the slogan is “You Want Credit, Come Back Tomorrow.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I was after gum, but killing time. It’s dim in there, the only light comes off the iceboxes. Ever since I was little I liked to stand there in the blue glow and pretend I was on a spaceship. That day it was hot, so hot I had to walk to cool down. I walked along the big fridge and freezer, feeling the chill, and saw all the venison sausage and souse and Georgia hash, which was all pretty cheap, cheaper than Jimmy Dean, but more than it would really cost to hunt. I added up the cost of the shells, and the gun, and the time, and the deer lick, and the beer, and whatever else. They’d just built a Super Walmart two towns over, and I thought about how you couldtrack out all day after a deer, or you could shoot up to Super Walmart or Lou’s and be back in a couple hours with all you needed for a week.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  So I decided I didn’t need to hunt anymore. It didn’t make sense.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Now understand that my hometown has produced more Special Forces soldiers per capita than any other town in America.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And when the season opens there’s more hunters out than trees can shake a leaf at. When the season closes, there’s still more hunters out than trees can shake sticks at. Everyone has trophies mounted over their mantels or the front porch and the first buck is a bigger occasion than the 13th birthday.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  You got to understand we’re proud, and we respect prey drive. We put down dogs that don’t hunt.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  So, I got more hell for this than for being a Battlestar Galactica fan or complaining that Lost was stupid. But I argued that we didn’t sew our own clothes even though there were still patches of wild cotton at the edge of the old Southerby Plantation and that we didn’t make our own shoes even though there was a dairy two exits up, and a hemp farm in the next county so we could make laces.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I’d been a scout all my life, all the way up to Eagle Scout, but hunting just didn’t make sense. I stuck with my guns and am proud of that decision to this day, even though everyone still teases me about