I love stories. As a child, I loved hearing stories and as I grew up, I loved reading stories. I was fascinated with how the writer was able to use words to create emotions. Growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s there were only a few television stations so there were not the unlimited forms of stimulation that our young people have today. Reading was a major component of my life. If I was not outside running around playing some sport with my friends, I was forced to find something to keep me busy.
The schools that I attended emphasized reading and writing much more than I see it emphasized today. With the revolution in technology, I see much less actual “writing” than ever before. Our world today is dominated by short bursts of communication as seen on Twitter and Instagram. Our kids communicate with terms such as lol and lmao. While I am a fan of technology and advancement, I yearn for the days when a friend could send a friend in another city a handwritten letter. Today, I rarely receive handwritten letters in the mail.
My first major exposure to writing came as a Freshman in high school. At the beginning of the semester, my English teacher, Br. Howard, (I attended a Marist high school) told us that our final project would be to write a short story of no less than 10 typed pages. We could pick any topic and it was not limited to something that we had learned during the school year. As a chronic procrastinator, I waited until the weekend before the project was due to begin. After going through the standard practice of complaining about the project (“How is this going to help me in life ?” and “Since I am not going to be a writer, why do I have to do this ?”), I decided that I had no choice but to begin. At first I could not come up with a topic to write about. I went through the books that we had read during the year, Catcher in the Rye, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, but nothing spoke to me. I finally decided to try to make the project fun. I decided to create a story about a challenging but bright student who was always playing practical jokes on his teacher. The story was titled “Howard” and a subtle attempt at humor since Br. Howard had a healthy sense of humor. I would describe it as a dramatic comedy.
I did not create an outline as I did not have much time when I sat down to write on Saturday morning. When I finally started to write, an interesting transformation began. The hours flew by as I was crafting the tale. The dialogue flowed and the words just appeared on the pages. For the first time in my life as a “writer”, I was in a zone. I did not count the pages and I did not worry about what I was writing. I just wrote. When I finally stopped on Saturday evening, I had written almost 50 pages. The next step was to type the story. I had not taken typing class in high school so I knew that it would take me quite a while to finish typing the story.
On Sunday morning, I woke up and started typing. Although the typing process was slow and painful, I once again was in the zone. As I typed what I had written the day before, I could hardly believe that I had actually written what I was typing. It was an out of body experience. I changed and edited freely trying to make the story better as I continued to type. Thank God for the fact that the typewriter had a ribbon that allowed me to correct mistakes. Late Sunday night, I finished “Howard”. I organized the pages, stapled the story and placed it into my book bag. I was done.
On Monday morning, I walked into English class and Br. Howard asked us to hand in our projects. Surprisingly, rather than feeling relief that I had completed the project, I was nervous. I could not understand why at the time. In retrospect, I now understand that I was anxious because by writing the story I had put myself “out there” and I felt exposed. Was it any good ? Would Br. Howard like it ? Would he get it ?
About a week later, Br. Howard returned our stories. He placed them in large individual envelopes so that no one could see what he had written until you opened the envelope. I was again nervous about what he had written about my story. I did not open the envelope in class and waited until I was alone. When I opened the envelope, the first thing that I looked for the grade. It was not on the first page so I had to flip the pages until I reached the end. As I flipped through the pages, I noted many comments regarding grammar and misspellings. That was troubling. However, when I finally reached the last page, I saw that he had given me a 98. I was ecstatic as he was a very tough grader. However, what he wrote on the last page was worth more than any grade he could have given me. In essence what he wrote was “I was amused at the dialogue between the student and the teacher but I think the practical jokes could have been better. They were somewhat tame by my standards. However, I very much enjoyed your story and think that you have a gift for writing that you should nurture. Good job.”. Those short sentences had and continue to have a dramatic effect on my life.
However, despite Br. Howard’s words, I did not go out of my way to write for fun. I wrote when I had to for my classes but never simple for the joy of writing.
Several years later as a Junior in college, I was taking a class titled “Animals in Literature”. The required reading included works by authors such as Aesop, jack London and George Orwell. At the beginning of the semester, the professor handed out the syllabus and told us that our midterm project would be to write a 5-7 page fable. I paid little attention to the assignment until (you guessed it) the night before the fable was due, which was a Thursday After classes, I went back to my dorm room and sat down to write the fable. As I was beginning the project, my college roommate, John, walked into my room and asked me if I was ready to go out that night. Apparently, I had agreed to attend a “mixer” that night. Sadly, I explained to him that I could not join him as the project comprised 50% of my overall grade for the semester. He confidently walked over the fridge, opened it and pulled out 2 beers. He opened both beers, handed one of them to me, took a long sip and looked at me sitting in front of the typewriter. Dismissively, he waved his hand at me and said “Get out of that chair. You know that you take forever to type anything.” I looked at him questioningly and said “What are you doing ?”. He calmly stated, “You are going to dictate your silly fable, I am going to type it and we are going out tonight.”. It sounded like a great idea except for the fact that I had not yet come up with a theme for the fable. As I looked around my dorm room, I saw a stuffed penguin that my mother had given me years ago. The reason why she had given me a penguin went back to my little league baseball days. During a playoff game when I was no more then 10 years old, I was batting and when I hit the ball, I started running. One of the fans of the other team started screaming that I ran like a penguin. After defending my honor with this rowdy fan, my mother went out and bought me a stuffed penguin. I kept him throughout the years and he even went to college with me.
Now in my time of need, I decided to choose the penguin as the main character. After selecting the main character, I decided to name him Parnsworth. I have no idea why I selected this name but the juices were starting to flow. I then decided to use the Cuban exile experience as the theme for my fable. For the next few hours, I was in the zone and was coming up with ideas and characters and John was typing. When we finished, John looked up at me and said “This is pretty good.”. I was more concerned about making it to the party, which we did,
The next day I handed in “The Odyssey of Parnsworth the Penguin”. As was the case with my English class, I was somewhat nervous as to whether the teaching assistant would like it. Several weeks later, he handed back the paper. When I looked at it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had given me an “A”. However, the best part of the story was what he wrote. He wrote “I very much enjoyed Parnsworth and believe that you should consider publishing the story. It has a great deal of potential” As you go through my website, you will see what Parnsworth has become 30 years later.
I could go on and on about different experiences I have had while writing. However, rather than doing that, I will let you play around the site and I hope that you enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them.