Alt. title: Why I Write Like Jethro Bodine (and thanks for the inspiration, Brian!) 

Has this ever happened to you? You hear a few words (or read them); perhaps some innocuous event occurs – or it could even be an encounter with a particular object – and suddenly you find yourself confronted with, or reminded of, a powerful memory?

Well, that happened to me the other day as I was reading an interesting article at Copyblogger from guest writer Brian Lash.

It was a stark and dormy night – er, sorry; wrong story. OK, let’s try that again…

A Simple Writing Assignment

I must have been in third or fourth grade (that would make me about 9 or 10 years old), and my English teacher had given us an assignment to write an invitation, addressed to our parents and their friends, for some big upcoming school event; I don’t remember what it was.

It wasn’t just a “date/time/and bring the kids” type of thing, either; we had to describe the event and explain why they should come. (I have no idea why such a writing assignment was given to us grade-schoolers, but what the hey.)

Anyway, I was pretty good in the English department (or so I remember – and I’m sticking to that story!) so as I thought about how to do my assignment, I was struck (sound of dull thud) by a sudden inspiration (sound of light bulb turning on)!

“Hey, why not write it in a sortof ‘down-home’ style?” I thought to myself. (I’m tellin’ ya, even I amazed myself with my brilliance sometimes!) “Yeah, that’s the ticket! I’ll pretend to be Jethro and write it like that!” (You know the fella, the Clampett’s son on the Beverly Hillbillies clan on TV.)

Well! I’m tellin’ ya folks, that writing assignment turned out to be a work of art, if I do say so myself! It was filled with “howdy’s” and “y’all’s”; man, I was droppin’ g’s right and left. It was so “down home” you could have nailed it to the front door of the Clampett’s mansion and no one would have thought twice about it.

After it was, er, done (a word Mrs. MZM hates, but I consider correct; it means go ahead and stick a fork in it), I had what I considered to be an invitation written with authentic style and – what the heck – considerable panache (a French word that means a pile of hot blueberry pancakes with melted butter and Apricot jelly on top – in a word, sweet).

Just Waitin’ for the Applause…

When I turned it in, needless to say I was quite proud of myself. I just knew it would stand out like a beacon from the dreck (a word that should need no translation!) the other students had surely turned in. (Hey, I was a kid; I still thought as a kid.)

Alas, it didn’t, er, quite turn out as I expected. The next day as our teacher returned our graded assignments, I was quite literally shocked to see a giant red “F” scrawled on the top of mine! My heart sank. Then… it got worse.

As I stared disbelievingly at the flaming shards of my incredible masterpiece, my eyes drifted down to the bottom of the page, where they finally zeroed in on the Words of Doom: “Please ask your parents to call me!” (sounds of terrified shrieking and wailing)

“Oh, man,” I thought frantically, “I’m in for it now!” Which was immediately followed by “How could such an incredibly brilliant idea turn out to be such a disaster?”

*ulp* (sense of impeding doom)

Climbing Out of the “Box” of Expectations

See, what happened was exactly what Brian described: when I tried to write “outside the box” of expectations, I ended up being severely reprimanded. Oh, sure, my attempt at colloquial prose may have been a bit over the top, but that’s not the point. In reality, I was exhibiting some truly innovative thinking (at least, for a 10-year-old)!

So how come the teacher (and as it turned out, my parents too – *sigh*) couldn’t see, and even more importantly, appreciate and encourage that kind of thinking? Why, oh why, I ask imploringly (sound of heartfelt sobbing)?

I ended up doing the assignment over, to their specifications. Ho hum; how boring.

Now, you may have noticed the writing style here at the Zone is sometimes a little, well, off the wall (which is a handy colloquialism that covers a wide range of sins; anything from a bit out of the ordinary to just plain whacko).

Hey, that style didn’t come easy! I first had to unlearn some of the formal writing style I had picked up over years of schooling. And mind you, it’s not that I’ve thrown away everything I had to learn. No, it’s just that I’m finally comfortable with the balance achieved between good grammar and good conversation.

I mean, the whole point of my writing here is to make connections with folks; in fact, it’s summed up quite nicely in my byline (that short blurb up there below my mug shot photo):

Middle Zone Musings is a comfortable place to stop, have a cup of coffee and exchange ideas, big or small, with applications in the real world. We don’t ask for much, just a bit of your brain every now and then. Have a seat, take a load off, and relax…