Into The Wild

By Jon Krakauer Cycle 22 pg. 102 – 126

            Samuel Walter McCandless still wonders how a kid with so much compassion cause so much pain several weeks after his son turned up dead in Alaska.  Four large poster boards with photos documenting Chris’s life stand up on their dining room table.  Walt works for NASA and was the pioneering engineer for the Seasat launch.  His resume says Current U.S. Department of Defense Top Secret.  He performs consulting services aligned with remote sensor and satellite system design.  In 1957, when Walt just finished collage, the Soviets launched Sputnik 1.  Walt wanted to join the race for space so he took a job with Hughes Aircraft.  In 1959, he had five children but then his marriage became strained.  He divorced his wife Marcia.  Walt started dating a secretary named Wilhelmina Johnson, who everyone called, Billie.  The two got married and Billie gave birth to Chris.  When Chris was two, he snuck out of his house, walked across the street to a neighbor’s house, and raided their candy jar.  Billie and Walt worked out of the house in their office but they usually were too busy to monitor their kids.  Chris had to rely on his sister Carine a lot of the time.  The family traveled a lot in their motor home trailer.  Billie’s dad was like Chris where they loved the outdoors and they didn't like to kill other living creatures.  Chris had a lot of natural talent but he wouldn’t let anyone coach him.  Whenever you tried to teach him something, he put up a wall and didn’t listen.  During high school Chris would drive around giving burgers to homeless people and prostitutes and wanted to learn about their lives.  Chris was embarrassed by the way his parents spent their earnings whenever they treated themselves a little.  Chris was hired by a building contractor and was such a good salesmen that the owner offered to pay Chris’s full college tuition if he stayed in town.  Chris turned down the offer.

            One time while Chris was a little drunk, he told his dad that even though they had their differences, he was the best dad he had ever had.  On a road trip after graduation, Chris got lost in the last week and almost dehydrated in the Mojave dessert.  After his freshmen year at college he worked for his parents and invented a program to help the business.  When his parents asked how he made it work so well, he said, “Hey, it works.  That’s all you need to know.”  Chris’s relation with his parents diminished that summer when he found out that Walt’s split with Marcia was not clean and that he fathered another kid with her.  When everything came to light, Walt and Billie both put it behind them and continued on, but Chris was unable to move forward.  He couldn’t believe that his father would try to hide all of this and that separated the gap between them by a lot.  In 1990, Chris graduated college and he appeared to look happy.  A week after graduation he left his parents lives forever.

            The author portrays Chris and his father as both stubborn and do not like their thoughts to be budged.  Chris got an F in a class because he didn't listen when his teacher said to write his papers in a certain way.  His father was a leader and he would get very angry whenever his decisions were questioned.