← Speeches & Workshops

Mt. Sterling H.S. Writers

May 1, 2007.

Last time on this stage… my hair was longer and I was playing Louie Louie with a rock band. When I was in high school…we always drove to Mt. Sterling to date the girls. My brother married one. Some guy from Dosh married the one I dated.

Starting a speech…the hardest park.. Bummy. Chillochothe.. “probably dead.”

I wondered.. back when I was a freshman or sophomore, if someone would have come to my school to talk about writing, what would I want to know. First: How long was the speech going to take? Would he be boring? Would I be tested on what he said? Do I really care?

Frankly, when I was your age, my main concern was getting the assignment done, and not making too many mistakes.

That’s what I want to talk to you about today… 4 mistakes I made as a young writer. Things I wish someone would have told me.

1st: My fifth-grade teacher…my first story.. I wrote anyway. About things like monsters and dragons and space ships. Not good.

Then I started to write about a different kind of thing. Like My grandpa who only had three fingers on one hand and would sing “Pop goes the Weasel” and thump me on the head The teacher liked it! My friends liked it! 2 donkeys… one bucked Aunt Lizzie into a tank full of water Same! Grandma… cutting chickens head off… backed her into a bush

2nd Mistake I made…I wrote about things. My trip to Colorado. My 4-H project. My rock band. My 1967 powder blue Mustang hatchback. (Once raced a guy on the street in front of St. Mary’s church.. I won but my car quit and stayed there for two days.) Awful. I’d ignored the only thing the most interesting subject matter in the world… The one that’s right here in front of me…. Him!... (talk to him)… People are the most interesting things in this room. Get to know them. Chances are, they’re a lot like you. Ask the teachers….? (Who covers us everything but your mouth?.. One large step before getting into bed? Ball Toss.--What were you most afraid of when you were little? ---Your favorite toy when you were little. --Name one person other than your Mom or Dad who you really admire. --If you could be anywhere in the world right now?

P! People! People are Interesting! People are awesome! Get to know people! Write about people! Anybody have a really weird Uncle? Anybody have a grandma who likes to squeeze your cheeks? Anybody have a dad who does really embarrassing things to you? (My Dad: sings to the music in WalMart.)

Probably the main reason I’m a writer is because I think people are really cool.. I always want to know about them.. For example, right now I’d love to know… (audience)

3rd Mistake..Who I was writing for… mainly my teacher.

You need somebody to read what you’ve written or to listen to it! Writing just for your teacher doesn’t cut it.

On day in January…frozen wiper blades.. ripped off. Bought. Put on. No audience needed. Last Thursday I went to have my income taxes done. No audience. Worked out fine. But last Friday I sat down to write this speech… Would it have been any fun to tell my story without an audience? Any fun to tell a story that no one ever hears or reads?

Get an audience. Tell your teacher you want to read your stuff everywhere.. for everybody.. Read for mom and dad. Read for Grandpa and Grandma. Read for your classmates. Read for your dog. Get your grandpa and grandma and dad and mom to tell you stories about when they were little.

A family in my town: Wednesday night: Storytelling night. A chair in the middle of the room. (Josh and Jeremy) When you write something you like, tell someone to sit down and listen to you read it. Tell your teacher you’d like to read it in class. Ask yourself this simple question..When I write, who am I trying to please? : HINEY THE MULE.

The 4th and last and biggest mistake…

Watch this! Magic! I’m going to read your minds! I’m going to hear the little thoughts inside your head. PRETEND: I’m a teacher and this afternoon I give you a writing assignment for tomorrow. Wait! Wait! I can hear the thoughts! “Oh, it won’t be good enough..” “Oh, they’re all gonna laugh at me.” “Oh, I can’t spell.” “Oh, I don’t know where to put the commas.” “Oh, if it’s not perfect, I’ll just die!” “Oh, I might have to listen to some bald guy talk about writing.”

My mistake? Some of yours! Worrying! Don’t! Stop it! Quit it!

….. Stop writing like your afraid of making a mistake. Write because it’s fun and you like to do it! When you begin writing, don’t worry about making mistakes…just write. After you’ve written it the first time, then you can go back and make it better.

Next summer… new play: David: You and I. My computer keeps track of how many times I change it. I looked last night: so far I’ve changed the play 112 times. Now I’m looking for things to fix, but if I’d have worried about that when I began, I’d never gotten started.

Having trouble getting started? ……. Eat more ice cream. …….. Go barefoot more often. ……..Wear your underwear backwards for an entire day. Only you will know but you’ll giggle every time you think about it. …….. Walk up to the biggest grouch you know and say, “I just want you to know that I feel great!” ……….Next time the person at McDonnald’s says “Have a nice day!” ask them why.

To get you started…. “Brainstorming”

----A time when you were very scared. ----Last time you cried. ---A smell..that every time you smell it, it makes you feel good --- The funniest member of your family --- The biggest mess you ever made --- The nicest thing somebody ever did for you ---The funniest thing that happened at school last week. --- Something you wish more people knew about you.

Ten o’clock. There are seventy-two pieces of stained glass in Jesus Christ’s belly. I know. I counted ‘em. I counted ‘em for three Sundays in a row. Momma sings in the choir and can see every move I make, so I gotta count ‘em out of the corner of my eye. Seventy-two. And, in case you’re interested, there are exactly 59 huge pipes in the organ and 117 smaller pipes that you can see from the third pew from the back, left hand side, three seats in. I have to count the little ones while the choir’s singing. 117 takes more concentration. It’s 10:08. All the church business is taken care of. The preacher has just started to read the scripture and suddenly it hits me: this insane, illogical desire to stand up and shout, “Hey! Anybody wanna play volleyball?” I mean, I’ve never actually done this ... it’s just an urge ... like wantin’ to jump off the top of the house just to see what it feels like, or seeing how many Oreos you can stuff in your mouth at one time. Then I look around and think, “Heck. I’ll bet there’s not a volleyball player in the whole front row.” Twelve minutes after ten. Mamma looks at me. She can see the evil thoughts actually seething inside my head. Twice she’s caught me with my copy of Sports Illustrated magazine sticking out of the hymnbook. Stupid, small hymnbook. It could barely hold a Readers Digest. 10:20. The sermon starts. The siege begins. Mr. Dalton’s head begins to bob. Bob, bob. bob ... jerk! There he goes again ... bob ... snort ... bob ... the snore begins ... and a quick, sharp elbow from Mrs. Dalton comes flying out of left field, whizzes past the second baseman, bounces off the shortstops glove and Whamo! She lays him a shot in the ribs which causes the old man’s eyes to blast open, his dentures explode out onto the hardwood floor and his Bible erupts out of his hands like a geyser flying over ten feet in the air and then making a splash-down right on the back of Mrs. Wilson’s head! She turns on him, eyes aglow. She raises her King James Version high above her head and brings it down with a sickening thud on the top of Mr. Dalton’s bald spot, causing him to fall unconscious into Mrs. Dalton. Mrs. Dalton, mistaking this move for the first sign of romance since their last child was born, swoons in a fit of romantic surprise. She slumps unconscious into the Retired Colonel James P. Montgomery, a life-long bachelor, who, unnerved by the sight of a seventy-four year old woman swooning all over him, comes to attention, loses his balance on his wooden leg, and falls head-long onto poor Mrs. Wilson who has just now resumed her seat after singing the fifteenth verse of “I’ll Fly Away.” I wish some of this would actually happen sometime. It would make the sermon go so much quicker. When I was just four Mamma said I stood up in the pew and shouted, “Fire! Fire! Hell’s on Fire!” The next week the board of elders voted to install a nursery and I was its first prisoner. 10:25. The preacher is stuck somewhere in the middle of the Red Sea. There are exactly eighteen white tasseled balls hanging from the pulpit cloth. Twenty-eight wooden rungs around the alter rail. 6,000 Hebrews crossing the red sea with over 120,000 evil Egyptian soldiers in hot pursuit. Just once I’d like to see them catch ‘em. I mean, it would ruin the story, but oh, the variety it would give us all. Mr. Dalton’s drowsy head has now reached the level of the pew in front of him. In another second his chin will be resting on Mrs. Wilson’s shoulder. And ... and ...Yes! Touch down! His sleeping nose has dug deeply into the bare flesh of her blue Sunday dress. She senses the nose. I mean, how could you not? Somewhere in his dream, he sniffs a deep sniff and two of Mrs. Wilson’s imitation pearls are immediately sucked up his left nostril. Mrs. Wilson, now choking with the pearls pulled tightly around her neck, senses that she is being attacked, once again, by an elderly Lutheran in the middle of the Red Sea. She jerks on the pearls, causing the lodged strand to be pulled forcefully out the side of Mr. Dalton’s nose. He is startled into consciousness in mid-dream, just as Britney Spears was about to ask him to go for a midnight swim on beach at Monte Carlo. His eyes open to find his nose bleeding and the angry bloodshot eyes of Mrs. Wilson staring directly into his! She pulls out a .45 magnum revolver and levels it at Britney’s lover. She fires! 10:31. The preacher is now heading into part two of today’s double-header. There are exactly fifteen folds in the red velvet curtain behind the cross. The second one from the right has been stained for six years from a communion spill. The gray on Mrs. Seybold’s roots has crept up exactly one-fourth inch since last Sunday. 6,000 Hebrews make it to safety, the Pharaoh is foiled again. The hymnbook has exactly 457 pages, counting the index, official order of worship, and not counting the nameplate dedicated to the loving memory of the Women’s Auxiliary Guild, 1947. Mr. Dalton snores again. Mrs. Dalton pulls a twelve-pound stem of bananas out of her purse and smacks him in the head with the entire bunch. He wakes in a fit of terror, sees only Mrs. Wilson’s face staring back at him from the next pew, jumps on her and strangles her with her own imitation pearls. The preacher says “Amen” and we take up the collection. Some day. Some day I will worship in a church without seventeenth-century hymns, without 18th-century architecture, and without 16th-century words. Some day I will take my children into the woods and see God in the dandelions, and the muskrats, and the bullfrogs, and the butterflies. Some day ... Some day I will see the real, living, loving, and exciting creator. Some day ... (sighs, looks up) ... I wonder how many ceiling tile?

The Old Man by Ken Bradbury

The world was gone when that old man died. Gone. Nothin’ left as far as I could feel.

Walter Zimmerman. Age 87. Husband of Grace and father of Edwin, Charles, Russell, and Mary. Devoted father, respected farmer. Born March 15th, 1910, durin’ one of the damnedest rainstorms the county had ever seen.

The preacher left that line out of the obituary. Granddad said he wanted it, but the preacher was Baptist and allowed as how such a word from the pulpit would be his last. I didn’t care. The world was gone when that old man died.

“Hey Jump!” (Granddad called me Jump) “Get the hell out here and catch them dogs!” Grandma allowed as how he shouldn’t cuss in front of me. “You’re gonna be teachin’ that boy to talk like you, Walter, you don’t watch your mouth!” “Hey Jump! Get them dearly beloved hound dogs outa that heavenly timber behind this blessed house!” “That’s better, Walter.” “And make it damned quick!”

Three ornery blue ticks bellerin’ and cryin’ out in the cold January air. Three ornery blue ticks barkin’ to hell wouldn’t have it. Granddad nearly droppin’ the lantern when they treed.

“OoooWeee, Jump! Don’t cha hear Shorty callin’? Listen to ‘im cry, Jump! He’s got a biggun! I swear to God, he’s got a biggun! Just listen to ‘im, Jump! Just listen, boy! You tell ‘im, Shorty! You tell ‘em who’s boss in these woods! You tell ole Mr. Coon that he’s got one snaggle-toothed-no-good-flea-kickin’-one-eyed-constipated-three-legged-coondog on his hiney! You tell ‘im, Shorty! Come on now! Come on now!”

We was off… Branches, briars, cockleburs, and horseweed slappin’ our faces like whips in the cold night air. We was off… Shorty bellerin’ like his gut was ‘bout to bust with joy… “OooooWeeee! Hold ‘im Shorty! Hold ‘im!” And Granddad was off in a smoky trail of Prince Albert tobacco, Spittin’ out his false teeth and jammin’ ‘em in his Carharts for more speed. “OoooooWeeeee! Hold ‘im Shorty! You hold ‘im you old coondog you!”

White eyes in the top of black elm. Two white eyes wonderin’ where in blazes that crazy coondog come from. “We got ‘im, Granddad! We sure ‘nough got ‘im now!” “You draw a bead, boy. Draw it true. “You draw it right between his eyes… Don’t you rush, now. That coon ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Killin’ seemed natural growin’ up. Everthing had to die sometime. “Dyin’s the way of things,” he’d tell me. I’d seen Granddad cut a pig’s throat for Christmas butcher, And I’d seen ‘im drown a runt pup to make room for the others. And I’d seen Grandma wring a chicken’s neck to nearly three foot long ‘fore it finally popped. But me… I never took pleasure in the kill. I did it, but I never took no pleasure. “Whatsa matter, boy? Shorty’s gettin’ riled. He wants to know what’s keepin’ you.”

“I… Just a minute, Granddad. I’m drawin’ the bead careful.”

“Shoot ‘im, boy! Shoot ‘im! He ain’t the only coon in the woods tonight, but he’s gonna be, you take too long.”

I never took pleasure in the kill. I did it, but I never took no pleasure. “Don’t…. don’t the coon have a chance, Granddad?”

“That coon’s got the option, boy. He can jump outa that tree and whip all three dogs, or he can get shot.”

I closed my eyes and squeezed.

Ping! A firey 22 split the night air. Ping! Another shell went screamin’ toward the top of oak. Ping! Ping! Ping! “OoooWeee! You got ‘im, Jump! You got ‘im, boy! Old Mr. Coon’s dead but he’s still hangin’ onto that branch!” Ping! Granddad, I don’t want to… Ping! Ping! Ping! I’d squeezed off nine shells before I opened my eyes.

The snow around my feet, sprinkled pink with blood, the coon hangin’ on by one dead paw. “He’s comin’, Jump! Best get outa the way! Best get outa the way, boy!”

Head over toenails, the limp, gray body tumbled from the tree and onto the snowbank above my head. A coon’s brain stops quick. His heart don’t last another beat.. but them claws. . . . There’s a life in them claws that’ll scratch ‘til doomsday, don’t somebody stop ‘em.

Scratchin’ down that bank, Mr. Coon grabbed hold o’ my pantleg and we both went screamin’ into the frozen crick. Almost frozen. Frozen ‘til me and Mr. Coon hit it.

Seventy-nine years old, he carried me the three miles to the truck and lit out toward Grandma and a hot bath like hound-chased coon. “What about Shorty, Granddad!?” “He knows the way, boy. Now hunker down to that heater. Come on, you damned old Ford! Make some tracks! OooooWeeee, but ain’t it good to be alive?!”

I wish we could do it again, old man. You always said you owed me one more hunt. But I was ………… I was busy.

I was …….busy.

Ain’t nobody ‘round this grave gonna miss you like your grandson, old man. Maybe Shorty, but he’s just a snaggle-toothed-no-good-flea-kickin’-one-eyed-constipated-three-legged-coondog. And what the hell does he know.

PAGE

PAGE 4