Writing
was serious business at my high school. To begin, we had to write. We
had an essay a week. 300 words as freshmen, incrementally up to 1000
as seniors.
Senior
year started like the others. We wrote about what we read, Hamlet
and The
Return of the
Native,
both good
enough stories. Then we did a critical analysis which critiqued three
works by one author. I chose Kipling because he seemed easy to read.
To get ready, we read Pope’s Essay
on Criticism, which
I’ve gone back to over the years, but I was too young for it
then. My English teacher also happened to be the monitor of my study
hall in the auditorium. She paced the aisles like a specter, keeping
everyone studying, or at least silent. She was old, squarely built,
and had a penchant for navy blue suits.
That
side of Miss Pease inspired me to write a limerick, my first personal
encounter with writing. In retrospect it was even more doggerel-eared
than most, but I do remember it.
The
phantom is dressed in blue.
Her
nylons are that color, too.
If
you cough or you sneeze.
“I’ll
have no talking, please.”
Oh
what are we going to do?
We
didn’t have the term “viral” back then, but the
poem certainly went that way. Everyone knew my limerick. I’d
hear it recited behind me in the hall. The teasing was good-natured,
and lasted a long time. It seemed I had written something that made
me sort of famous. And I could have gained a new perspective on
writing.
Then
came spring. We were all accepted in college. The English department
was not obliged to “grow” us any more, so we students’
task became the personal essay. Miss Pease introduced it, and I
greeted it with the same lack of enthusiasm I’d greeted the
précis or the comparison. But I was wrong. Miss Pease proved
it.
I
took her up on her dare to write about myself, about what mattered to
me. First, I wrote about what it was like to outsmart a trout with a
dry fly. And she read it. I could tell by her comments. Then I wrote
about an athlete I admired in a neighboring school who overcame great
difficulty to excel. She read it and commented. This was new to me. I
was writing about things outside academia, things alien to her, and
she was right there with me. I wrote about the time I inadvertently
betrayed my cross-country team in my sophomore year and won a race
when we were all supposed to hold back and tie for first. I earned
the name Glory Boy for that little blunder. She commented that I
seemed to have redeemed myself when I won the mile at the last indoor
state meet.
Writing
changed for me when I learned that I could use it to connect to
things that mattered to me, and that someone without those
connections would read it and understand it. I submitted an article
to a sporting magazine that covered hunting and fishing in Maine, and
they accepted it. I had an editorial published in the
newspaper—something about a new driving regulation. Writing
became more than personal; it became important and satisfying.
After
our last class of the year, I stayed behind to thank Miss Pease. I
presented my yearbook for her to sign. She turned to the English
faculty page and above her picture, wrote the customary, “Wishing
you every success in all your endeavors.” And then she signed
it. “Fondly, The Blue Phantom.”
