Now, before you send me emails on the beauty of nature, let me say that it was NOT my title, nor my essay. It was written by Robert G-for-genius just because he liked to harass Edna Mae. She took a sabbatical after we graduated...small wonder...
Edna Mae liked me. She put me on the Academe yearbook staff writing copy. She made the photographer take pics of me as a swami and in lederhosen (look it up) for our senior yearbook. She put me on the public speaking class debate team against SENIORS. We won. Best of all, Edna Mae liked my essays. If she had figured out that I wrote most of them in homeroom or study hall, she never said.
I liked Bob. He and I had an easy friendship, bantering and teasing. He was NOT a favorite of Edna Mae's. Well, no wonder.
That day I had scribbled "Ten Per Cent Chance of Showers" about coloring my hair with a water soluble dye and how it rained...you get the picture. Not literary genius, but Edna Mae liked it. She would have liked it if I had written about doggie doo-doo. Well, just to get her goat, Mr G-for-genius came up with "How Ugly Is a Tree?". I knew he had pulled a stunt of mammoth proportion when I saw her face screw up and turn several shades of purple; I thought she was going to spit. Her glare settled on Bob. I squirmed. He grinned.
She HATED it. He had gone into wonderful details about the rough bark, the awful color, dead branches. He must have spent hours thinking of what would annoy Edna Mae the most. She asked me if I knew what he thought he was doing. Now how would I know?
Well, to add insult, she read his essay aloud, criticizing it at every comma. Then she read mine as an example of what she wanted to read. I came out from under my desk at the end of class, embarrassed beyond belief. Not Bob. G-for-genius thought the whole thing was funny. He always had a sense of....humor.
Now forty years later, I am still writing about cosmetics. G-for-genius is writing funny, enlightening newsletters at Christmas. Not once did he mention an ugly tree.
R.I.P., Edna Mae. I think a lesson has been learned.
I didn't have the pleasure of knowing Edna Mae, except passing in the hall.I was your Clasic ,and I quote" Not living up to her potential, underachiever" One of my greatest regrets. I DO however, remember someone putting a condom over the door handle of her classroom, maybe your friend B ??? LOL
ReplyDeleteNo, Bob's sense of humor was much more intellectual. I do, however, know who placed the condom. No, I won't tell.
ReplyDeleteAt that age, I was so naive I didn't know what a condom was. But Marylin, you already knew how naive I was.
ReplyDeleteThe real story behind "Trees are Ugly" is: it followed our first essay, which was supposed to be humorous. The second essay was supposed to be descriptive, so I thought: "Why not combine descriptive with humor." It wasn't until Edna Mae's reaction, confirmed by the overlarge and underlined "C" on the paper, that I realized she had probably never read Mad Magazine and therefore had no sense of humor. As for the grin; that's what I do when I face impotent rage, which probably explains why I've been fired several times in my life.
I guess my theme song was John Mellencamp's "I fight authority," at least until I matured. I think I matured eight years ago when my son became a teenager. My wife says my maturity never happened and she's given up on it.
G-for-genius
Post Script - the best advice I ever received was: "Brains are the cheapest commodity on the market."