My Name is Jonathan Merket

This was written for an acting class earlier this year.

My name is Jonathan Merket. I was born on December 16^th, 1988 in Sabula, Iowa. In case you didn’t know, Sabula is a tiny town on an island right in the middle of Sabula Lake. I don’t know which name came first, the town or the lake, but it never really mattered to me anyways.

Growing up in a poor community has its ups and downs. For a long time, you’ve got no idea that you’re poor, and you’re happy to just run around with your friends on the docks, learning how to fish and building forts out of the scraps of metal and wood lying around the beach. When we were about 10 or 11, me Tommy, and Dan found a tiny johnboat half-buried in the mud and thought that we were the luckiest kids on the planet. We dug it out, and fixed it up, then we were able to cross the lake in the summers with our .22’s and hunt squirrels and rabbits. Our families never said anything, because there were times when what we hunted was the only thing for dinner. We knew that, so we started hunting and fishing before and after school too, just so we’d have something to eat. It got to the point where we couldn’t afford bullets for the .22’s, so we started using bows and arrows. We got really good at it too. They were hard times, but we still had fun, we were still able to be kids. We were happy.

I think in high school it started to really sink in that we didn’t have any money. We had to go off the island to go to school, and while the other kids would all drive their new cars to school, all the kids on the island would load onto the back of an old pickup with wooden sides. It was an old International truck from 1940, and it belched smoke like a freight train. There were 15-20 of us crammed on there, I remember getting a little nervous when some of the older kids drove because they liked to go a little fast. I have no idea how we survived with the way some of them drove. Winter was bad, it was below freezing and the snow would build up 5-6 feet, and would be coming down on us as the winds cut through the thickest layer of clothes you had. We huddled together for warmth, plus it was a good excuse to get close to the girls. There were times we’d have to get out of the truck with shovels and dig through snow banks just to get to school. The other kids made fun of us a lot, but that really banded us together. We were the kids of the island, we stuck together no matter what.

I got lucky and was able to land a scholarship at the University of Colorado, and I took it. I was one of few to make it off the island, a couple kids joined the Army, one other went to college, the rest stayed. Right after college I landed a job at the Los Angeles office of Morgan Stanly. Talk about a culture shock. College had been quite a bit of a shock, but I adjusted pretty quickly. LA, was crazy. I was still poor and broke, because I was on the low end of the totem pole at the company and most of my money was going to pay for rent, bills, utilities, cell phone, the list goes on and on. So, I didn’t have a car, and rode my bike everywhere, which has bonuses both economically and physically.

It’s amazing how fast things come back to you. Stuff you didn’t think you would ever use again, you suddenly find yourself using on a daily basis. I’m a lot better off than a lot of people because I was, in some ways, prepared. I wonder how the people on the island are doing, or if there’s even an island left. But I can’t stay up worrying about it, there’s plenty to keep me up as it is.