Smith Elementary News

Mrs. Eckler walked from student while they huddled over their books. They wrote sentences, telling their stories. Some had Crayons adding pictures to complete their books for the young author competition. I loved these days. This is where I look back to when I am asked when I first wanted to be a writer. In my mind, all of these days are lit with sunlight.

After a time she made her way over to me. She loved my idea, a story heavily influenced by Piers Anthony's A Spell for Chameleon. She help me craft better sentences. More details. Breaking thoughts up. Just learning how to make it, make sense. I had no idea what it meant for something to sound right, or have a cadence.

She looked over my work and approved of what I had done today. She then asked me if I would like to be on the newscast on Friday. Now, this was a huge honor. It would mean being out of class, working with a team, making a news show. This was the next best thing to being Santa Clause in the second grade play. I said yes.

She handed me my assignment. Sports.

I should note that my household was practically devoid of "normal" sports. There was no baseball or football games shown on my family TV. The only way I was going to know anything about the information I would need to read would be if it had to with The Iron Sheik or Bill Elliott.

When I got the details of my assignment, my tension went down. I would read the scores from a few Detroit games and ask a sports trivia question off the back of a Trivial Pursuit card.

The newscast was done from a little room behind the office. There was no video. The five of us, under the direction if the Vice Principal, passed the silver PA microphone around reading our scripts. We lined up in the order we would need to read in and started on our signal.

When it got to me, I took my long nervous breath and began. The scores went smoothly, I knew the names of all the Detroit teams. The same could not be said of the trivia question. I do not remember the question, but I remember the answer I said over the PA was "Cincinnati Beagles".

It would take me about thirty seconds to learn that it wasn't Beagles but Bengals and just a few seconds more than that to realize this was a funny mistake, which would cause people to laugh at me. At that age, I did not know how to laugh at myself. I didn't want to be the loser who knew nothing about sports. This honor had been lost.

A month later, I had an opportunity to do the news cast again. I told the joke.