Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Ogres at Work
(Our workshop assignment was to write an autobiographical story told in the manner of a fairy tale)
My birthday, April 20th, is an inauspicious date on which to be born. Adolph Hitler was born on April 20th. It's a date controlled by a pair of evil ogres.
During my birth the ogres conferred.
"With Adolph, we tormented all mankind. He was our masterpiece!" chortled the first ogre, "What shall we do with this little guy?"
"Let's make his torment more personal," suggested the second, "Let's cause him always to fail some of his classes at school.
"Great!" agreed the first. And so it was that I never passed Spelling or Penmanship in grade school.
The ogres arranged that Spelling would be the only subject in which 90% was the lowest passing grade. I never even approached 85. Whenever there was a spelling bee, I could be depended upon to be knocked out in one of the earliest rounds.
Remember those lists of Spelling Demons? The ogres developed them just to humiliate me.
It was the ogres who developed "The Palmer Method" to teach Penmanship. I struggled with those long ovals where the lines were supposed to lie on top of each other. Mine wandered drunkenly back and forth, seldom touching one another.
Then came the coiled line. When completed, it was supposed to look like a Slinky. Mine looked as though I'd had a coughing fit while pen was to paper.
To make matters worse, the ogres decided to create a rule that we weren't permitted to use fountain pens. Instead, each desk had an inkwell. We were forced to use what were called 'straight pens', which in my case meant that numerous inkblots would insist upon decorating my desk and all my papers.
How I hated the assignment of a 'Composition'. This meant that Spelling and Penmanship would conspire to destroy my psyche utterly. Invariably, under the influence of the ogres, the teacher would end the assignment with those two dread words which assured my downfall, "Neatness counts."
Today, any youngster born on April 20th. (or any other date for that matter) has a personal laptop computer, with a Word Processing program, with a Spell Checker, and with an extensive array of elegant printing fonts. Thus the youngster can turn out beautiful looking pages. Their content may be drivel, but it will be great looking drivel.
Ogres at Work
My birthday, April 20th, is an inauspicious date on which to be born. Adolph Hitler was born on April 20th. It's a date controlled by a pair of evil ogres.
During my birth the ogres conferred.
"With Adolph, we tormented all mankind. He was our masterpiece!" chortled the first ogre, "What shall we do with this little guy?"
"Let's make his torment more personal," suggested the second, "Let's cause him always to fail some of his classes at school.
"Great!" agreed the first. And so it was that I never passed Spelling or Penmanship in grade school.
The ogres arranged that Spelling would be the only subject in which 90% was the lowest passing grade. I never even approached 85. Whenever there was a spelling bee, I could be depended upon to be knocked out in one of the earliest rounds.
Remember those lists of Spelling Demons? The ogres developed them just to humiliate me.
It was the ogres who developed "The Palmer Method" to teach Penmanship. I struggled with those long ovals where the lines were supposed to lie on top of each other. Mine wandered drunkenly back and forth, seldom touching one another.
Then came the coiled line. When completed, it was supposed to look like a Slinky. Mine looked as though I'd had a coughing fit while pen was to paper.
To make matters worse, the ogres decided to create a rule that we weren't permitted to use fountain pens. Instead, each desk had an inkwell. We were forced to use what were called 'straight pens', which in my case meant that numerous inkblots would insist upon decorating my desk and all my papers.
How I hated the assignment of a 'Composition'. This meant that Spelling and Penmanship would conspire to destroy my psyche utterly. Invariably, under the influence of the ogres, the teacher would end the assignment with those two dread words which assured my downfall, "Neatness counts."
Today, any youngster born on April 20th. (or any other date for that matter) has a personal laptop computer, with a Word Processing program, with a Spell Checker, and with an extensive array of elegant printing fonts. Thus the youngster can turn out beautiful looking pages. Their content may be drivel, but it will be great looking drivel.
