Joe Aaron's Short Story 'Dad At 75'

In Joe Aaron’s short story “Dad At 75,” Aaron uses a sort of narration to describe his father in the past and how that compares to him in the present. He shares his father’s harsh background during and following the Great Depression and how it made his father strong-willed and genuine. This paper will review Aaron’s story as well as his main arguments, and will summarize and evaluate the quality of this story and focus on any areas of weakness within. To briefly summarize this already short story, you must first understand that the whole story is Aaron talking about his father. He begins the story by saying “This is being written on the January day that my dad...has put three quarters of a century of living behind him…” (154)

He goes on to talk about how on this day, his father’s 75th birthday, his mind turns to his own childhood. Aaron’s family lived in New Mexico where his father took care of a farm that often failed him due to the harsh weather conditions. Despite the harshness of their environment, Aaron’s father never gave up and continued to work hard. His father was a very determined and

Because this story is about his father, Aaron did a fine job making this story seem very personal and he filled it with emotion. He spoke very fondly of his father, and thus, the reader was interested in finishing. I know that when I was reading this story, I wasn’t bored at all simply because it reminded me of my own father, whom I also think of very fondly. Despite these positive thoughts of the story, there were a few issues that could’ve been addressed during the writing process. These issues weren’t drastic enough to make the story hate worthy, they were just small things that people notice and take account of. There were only three main weaknesses presented in this story and they were bias, unnecessary repetition of phrases, and lack of depth and dimension within the