Good evening... Thanks to all for the wealth of information regarding my question. Even the differing impressions offer good dialogue and shed insight, and for that I'm appreciative.
I'll include herein some context for the sentence models, but I rather liked your notions based on the bare models alone first. Though certainly we understand exactly what Austin means here because of context, my close reading attempted to unpack Shepard's specific use of language in this section. The play between "there," "it," "that," and "here" is fascinating as a subject of its own; "It" as a much larger symbol than impersonal pronoun, "there" and "here" as geographical landmarks imbued with meaning, sense of place and/or disclocation, etc... Thanks again.
LEE: It’s not somethin’ you learn out of a Boy Scout Handbook!
AUSTIN: Well how do you learn it then! How’re you supposed to learn it!
LEE: (stands) What’re you, crazy or somethin’? You went to college. Here, you are down here, rollin’ in bucks. Floatin’ up and down in elevators. And you wanna’ learn how to live on the desert!
AUSTIN: I do, Lee. I really do. There’s nothin’ down here for me. There never was. When we were kids here it was different. There was a life here then. But now—I keep coming’ down here thinkin’ it’s the fifties or somethin’. I keep finding myself getting off the freeway at familiar landmarks that turn out to be unfamiliar. On the way to appointments. Wandering down streets I thought I recognized that turn out to be replicas of streets I remember. Streets I misremember. Streets I can’t tell if I lived on or saw in a postcard. Fields that don’t even exist anymore.
LEE: There’s no point cryin’ about that now.
Sincerely,
John
John Chorazy
English III Academy, Honors, and Academic
Pequannock Township High School
Nulla dies sine linea.
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