The Blackboard's Gone

By Bill Craig
I was the 1962 Spelling Champion of Carroll County.

The word I won with was CARBURETOR. The guy I beat was Tony.

Tony spelled it with an A where the last E is.

You know? That word should be spelled with an A

"CARBURATOR" There: Much better!

Where am I going with this, you must be asking yourselves, right?

Well, one reason I was such a good speller as a kid was because I learned to
speak

English by using a German-English dictionary, so I had to really look at

the word and see the order of the letters, how the word is pronounced and

what it means. I'd say I spent about half a minute with each word.

"Get to the POINT, Bill!"

Okay, Okay!

The blackboard's gone.

The one in my brain.

The one which has the word conveniently written on it, so in spelling a

word, all I have to do is "look" at the letters and read them off one by one.

I don't know exactly when the blackboard was taken away, but it's gone, and

now all that's up there is letters, LOTS of letters - just floating around

and all jumbled up. ALL jumbled up!

Not FAIR!

Give me back my blackboard!

Please?


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