The idea of becoming a writer had come to me off and
on since my childhood in Belleville. but it wasn't until my
third year in high school that the possibility took hold. Until
then I'd been bored by everything associated with English
courses. I found English grammar dull and difficult. I hated
the assignments to turn out long, lifeless paragraphs that were
agony for teachers to read and for me to write.
When our class was assigned to Mr. Fleagle for third-
year English I anticipated another cheerless year in that most
tedious of subjects. Mr. Fleagle had a reputation among students
for dullness and inability to inspire. He was said to be
very formal, rigid and hopelessly out of date. To me he looked
to be sixty or seventy and excessively prim. He wore primly
severe eyeglasses. his wavy hair was primly cut and primly
combed. he wore prim suits with neckties set primly against
the collar buttons of his white shirts. He had a primly pointed
jaw, a primly straight. nose, and a prim manner of speaking that
was so correct, so gentlemanly, that he seemed a comic antique
I prepared for an unfruitful year with Mr. Fleagle and
for a long time was not disappointed. Late in the year we tackled
the informal essay. Mr. Fleagle distributed a homework sheet offering
us a choice of topics. None was quite so simple-minded as "What I Did
on My Summer Vacation," but most seemed to be almost as dull. I took
the list home and did nothing until the night before the essay was due.
Lying on the sofa, I finally faced up to the unwelcome task, took
the list out of my notebook, and scanned it.
The topic on which my eye stopped was ' The Art of Eating Spaghetti. "
This title produced an extraordinary sequence of mental
images. Vivid memories came flooding back of a night in
Bellevillle when all of us were seated around the supper table
-Uncle Allen, my mother, Uncle Charlie, Doris, Uncle Hal-and Aunt
Pat served spaghetti for supper. spaghetti was still a little known
foreign dish in those days. Neither Doris nor I had ever eaten spaghetti,
and none of the adults had enough experience to be good at it.
All the good humor of Uncle Allen's house reawoke in my mind as I
recalled the laughing arguments we had that night about the socially
respectable method for moving spaghetti form plate to mouth.
Suddenly I wanted to write about that, about the warmth
and good feeling of it, but I wanted to put it down simply for
my own joy, not for Mr. Fleagle. It was a moment I wanted
to recapture and hold for myself. I wanted to relive the pleasure
of that evening. To write it as I wanted, however, would
violate all the rules of formal composition I'd learned in
school, and Mr. Fleagle would surely give it a failing grade.
Never mind. I would write something else for Mr. Fleagle
after I had written this thing for myself.
When I finished it the night was half gone and there
was no time to compose a proper, respectable essay for
Mr. Fleagle. There was no choice next morning but to turn
in my tale of the Belleville supper. Two days passed before
Mr. fleagle returned the graded papers. and he returned
everyone's but mine. I was preparing myself for a command
to report to Mr. Fleagle immediately after school for discipline
when I saw him lift my paper from his desk and knock
for the class's attention.
"Now, boys," he said. " I want to read you an essay. This
is titled, ' The Art of Eating Spaghetti.' "
And he started to read. My words! He was reading my
words out loud to the entire class. What's more, the entire class
was listening. Listening attentively. Then somebody laughed,
then the entire class was laughing, and not in contempt and
ridicule, but with open-hearted enjoyment. Even Mr. Fleagle
stopped two or three times to hold back a small prim smile.
I did my best to avoid showing pleasure, but what I was
feeling was pure delight at this demonstration that my words
at the eleventh hour as it were, I had discovered a calling. It
wad the happiest moment of my entire school career. When
Mr. Fleagle finished he put the final seal on my happiness
by saying, " Now that, boys, is an essay, don't you see. It's
don't you see - it's of the very essence of the essay, don't
you see. Congratulations, Mr. Baker."