2-5-06
In my almost 43 years of living, I have experienced many things.Some were good, others not so great. All these many years, I had yet to experience a spelling bee.
Thankfully, the wait is over.
Yes, early on Saturday morning, the daughter and I took a trip to Fort Smith so she could compete in the Sebastian County Spelling Bee.
The pressure was overwhelming. We could both feel it on the drive to Fort Smith. She studied, I drove and tried to overcome what I feel was a bad sausage biscuit that I had purchased for breakfast.
No, you don’t want to know about the final conclusions on the sausage biscuit. Trust me.
Anyway, even though we left a little late, thanks to my skillful driving and not much traffic, I got her there on time to UAFS (which stands for the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith).
During the drive, I offered her a dollar if she would burp when she stepped up to the microphone, but she wouldn’t go for it.
I dropped her off and had to park about halfway across the campus. Luckily, as I walked to the auditorium, I happened to see a newspaper rack for USA Today! Yes! I purchased a paper and walked inside.
Nice building, so nice they wouldn’t allow me and my 16 ounce Diet Dr Pepper in. So I had to down about half a bottle in one gulp. Like the bad sausage biscuit, I would pay for this later also.
I went inside and sat down on the back row and started reading the newspaper. All the kids got settled in on the stage and went over the rules. They had a practice round and I knew several of the kids were in trouble as three of them missed words like “banana”.
Finally, the preliminaries were over. There were 42 kids entered. My daughter survived the first round, although 13 others bit the dust.
I thought it would be better when a kid misspelled a word to bong them or vote them off (aside from my daughter, of course), but instead the moderators were friendly. “We’re sorry, that is not correct.”
As we played along, I would try to spell the word. Sometimes I was right, but I missed several. As a kid would spell the word, if he or she got something wrong, I would let out my own little beeping noise to signify a misspelled word.I thought it was fairly light, but after one kid goofed up, I “beeped” him and some parents sitting down a couple of rows below me turned around to give a dirty look.
In the second round, 10 other kids fell. I was a good sport, of course, and refrained from any taunts of “loser” because as the announcer said before it started “everybody here is a winner”.
Hmm. As the third round started, the 19 surviving kids were huddled together, making them leave their seats. The words grew much tougher in this round. The first four kids went down before it was time for my daughter.
The moderator gave her “altarpiece”. I detected a little worry as she stood at the microphone. She started off A-L-T-E! I cringed, hoping this was the correct way to spell it.
Sadly, it wasn’t. The next two kids got words some five-year old with half a brain could spell.
We waited until that round was over before escaping. It was a different experience. I quickly grew tired of hearing the kids ask the announcer to repeat the word, use it in a sentence and give a definition.
A lot of the kids were stalling, of course. You could see it on their faces. Now if the Craigman was up there and they gave me a word that I didn’t know how to spell, instead of going through that routine, I would have simply said, “Crap if I know, and give it a try.”
None of the other kids were that honest.
After leaving, I about ran out of gas (in the truck!) and breezed in on fumes to a gas station. We escaped Fort Smith, but not Arkansas!
Later that afternoon, we went to her basketball game. Hartford Hustler junior high basketball! Catch the excitement. She’s in seventh grade but is a member of the 9th-grade team.
They were playing some team I had never heard of. Sadly, the chick Hustlers (or whatever they are called) have not won a game this year and Saturday was not the day. The game was close throughout the first half until these two little chicks from the other team started draining three’s.
As the game started becoming a rout, I wanted to start a chant for my daughter, but knew she would melt like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz if I did. Finally, she got in with 1:38 left in the final quarter. Her team was down by 19.
She didn’t get a chance to shoot but thanks to her hustle and great defense, Hartford did cut the lead down by one point before the game ended.
Thankfully, the wait is over.
Yes, early on Saturday morning, the daughter and I took a trip to Fort Smith so she could compete in the Sebastian County Spelling Bee.
The pressure was overwhelming. We could both feel it on the drive to Fort Smith. She studied, I drove and tried to overcome what I feel was a bad sausage biscuit that I had purchased for breakfast.
No, you don’t want to know about the final conclusions on the sausage biscuit. Trust me.
Anyway, even though we left a little late, thanks to my skillful driving and not much traffic, I got her there on time to UAFS (which stands for the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith).
During the drive, I offered her a dollar if she would burp when she stepped up to the microphone, but she wouldn’t go for it.
I dropped her off and had to park about halfway across the campus. Luckily, as I walked to the auditorium, I happened to see a newspaper rack for USA Today! Yes! I purchased a paper and walked inside.
Nice building, so nice they wouldn’t allow me and my 16 ounce Diet Dr Pepper in. So I had to down about half a bottle in one gulp. Like the bad sausage biscuit, I would pay for this later also.
I went inside and sat down on the back row and started reading the newspaper. All the kids got settled in on the stage and went over the rules. They had a practice round and I knew several of the kids were in trouble as three of them missed words like “banana”.
Finally, the preliminaries were over. There were 42 kids entered. My daughter survived the first round, although 13 others bit the dust.
I thought it would be better when a kid misspelled a word to bong them or vote them off (aside from my daughter, of course), but instead the moderators were friendly. “We’re sorry, that is not correct.”
As we played along, I would try to spell the word. Sometimes I was right, but I missed several. As a kid would spell the word, if he or she got something wrong, I would let out my own little beeping noise to signify a misspelled word.I thought it was fairly light, but after one kid goofed up, I “beeped” him and some parents sitting down a couple of rows below me turned around to give a dirty look.
In the second round, 10 other kids fell. I was a good sport, of course, and refrained from any taunts of “loser” because as the announcer said before it started “everybody here is a winner”.
Hmm. As the third round started, the 19 surviving kids were huddled together, making them leave their seats. The words grew much tougher in this round. The first four kids went down before it was time for my daughter.
The moderator gave her “altarpiece”. I detected a little worry as she stood at the microphone. She started off A-L-T-E! I cringed, hoping this was the correct way to spell it.
Sadly, it wasn’t. The next two kids got words some five-year old with half a brain could spell.
We waited until that round was over before escaping. It was a different experience. I quickly grew tired of hearing the kids ask the announcer to repeat the word, use it in a sentence and give a definition.
A lot of the kids were stalling, of course. You could see it on their faces. Now if the Craigman was up there and they gave me a word that I didn’t know how to spell, instead of going through that routine, I would have simply said, “Crap if I know, and give it a try.”
None of the other kids were that honest.
After leaving, I about ran out of gas (in the truck!) and breezed in on fumes to a gas station. We escaped Fort Smith, but not Arkansas!
Later that afternoon, we went to her basketball game. Hartford Hustler junior high basketball! Catch the excitement. She’s in seventh grade but is a member of the 9th-grade team.
They were playing some team I had never heard of. Sadly, the chick Hustlers (or whatever they are called) have not won a game this year and Saturday was not the day. The game was close throughout the first half until these two little chicks from the other team started draining three’s.
As the game started becoming a rout, I wanted to start a chant for my daughter, but knew she would melt like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz if I did. Finally, she got in with 1:38 left in the final quarter. Her team was down by 19.
She didn’t get a chance to shoot but thanks to her hustle and great defense, Hartford did cut the lead down by one point before the game ended.
posted by Craig Hall at
8:51 AM
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