Spelling Bees

Last Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend the performance of the Musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee", featuring among others, my granddaughter, Annie Kuhl, as the moderator," Rona Lisa Peretti.”  It was a splendid production, and you "Kuhls" would have been proud of her, as was I. However, it stirred up mixed emotions for me.

 As a child I was always a good speller. Don't ask me why, I just was.  I have a faint recollection of being the last one standing in the portable, where we had 2nd grade!  (That was a LOOONG tim e ago!) Excuse the spelling! As time proceeded I still maintained my place in the line of our class!  ----So as a 7th grader I was Spelling Champion at Robert Morris School in Batavia, New York!  When up came the time for the Genesee County Spelling Bee, I was there!  Probably wore a necktie, and everything!    Things went well for the first rounds of oral spelling.  Those of us remaining were to take a written for the next round.  Two of us had 100s.  But since there were only two they decided to allow the ones who missed only one to proceed also.   That was my downfall!  After all, I thought, - "it's just a matter of hanging in there and I've got it made!"    Ah so! --- The first new oral round went well.  "Man, did I have it made!"  My next word was "ransom.”  My mind, now in overdrive put an "e" on the  end. After all some has one!?  But, too late, I realized, I'd been too confident and not careful enough!!!  With my tail between my legs, I took a seat. -To the accompaniment of a rather sad nod by my principal who, after all, was kind of a friend.
                               Had enough?  But the story goes on!

 Strangely enough, the following year i was spelling champion of Batavia Junior High School!  Incidentally, the runner up was from the same school that Grandma Ruth Marie Amidon went to. The runner up was an acquaintance from the Block System in the Junior High  in which Jeanne and I were in the same group -"The college entrance group".

So the next year yours truly was at the Genesee County Spelling Bee, again!  As before I survived the first two basics, but the third round got me!  This one made more sense!  The word was "unconscious".  That was where I was again!  This time I left out the "s" in the middle!  There was no sad principal to console me with a nod of sympathy!   Probably the darn necktie got me!

 As a follow-up It's fun to visit your old classmates, even after 50 or whatever years.  Jeanne became a widow about 20 yrs ago and i contacted her by "phone about 5 yrs ago with respect to some class get-together that i wasn't going to be able to make.  After a bit we went into family discussion and she said she had had 8 children.  Upon hearing we had had 9, she promptly interjected: "You beat me there, too!"  Sadly, last summer when we went to Batavia, I was unable to contact her.  The phone # had been discontinued.