Having now completed 725 blogs I want to thank my freshman English composition teacher at Forest Hills
High School for giving me a hard time. It was my worst subject. With all the
rules about missed commas, split infinitives and dangling participles my
creative juices got clogged and clotted. She was an old-school sort who cared
less for creativity than red-penciling subjects and predicates or ending
sentences with prepositions, which is one of those mandates up with which I
shall never put.
Our first assignment in
September was to write about what we did during our summer vacation. I had no
words for my loneliness. My friends all disappeared on trips or summer camp and
returned with exotic tales. I walked their dogs and watered their plants. I waited
for post cards and wandered neighborhoods outside my usual perimeter.
When my friend Stanley
returned we took to following odd people. One man in particular remains in my
memory. He was a sort of Ichabod Crane-looking fellow who spoke to himself. Of
course nowadays doesn’t everybody? We trailed poor Ichabod for blocks down
subway steps and out the other side of the street. Now I’m thinking Ms.
Diefendurfer may have been following us and turn us in for a run-on sentence.
This was the sort of
malicious mischief one could never write about nor could I fill a page
snitching how I opened the side door of the Austin Theater to let in two
friends who couldn’t raise the twenty cents for admission. Did she really
expect an account of those salad days or was the content just a way of testing
for proper grammar and penmanship?
Too bad Donald Trump never
took a class with Ms. Diefendurfer. The world might be a better place. In fact
while I was in high school Donald was going to Kew Forest School across from my
apartment house. Had I known at the time I might have shadowed him around the
neighborhood, bought a few distressed properties with my allowance and some deposit
bottles and even learned how to become the second smartest man who ever lived.
Dear Ms. Diefendurfer,
I’m ready for my make-up
exam. I want to write about my summer with the president of the United States.
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