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 cours. 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. He was said to be very formal, rigid and hopelessly out of date. To me he looked to be sixty or venty and excessively prim. He wore primly vere eyeglass, his wavy hair was primly cut and primly combed. He wore prim suits with neckties t primly against the collar buttons of his white shirts. He had a primly pointed jaw, a primly straight no, and a prim manner of speaking that was so correct ,so gentlemanly ,that he emed 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 talked the informal essay. Mr Fleagle distributed a homework sheet offe
ring us a choice of topics. None was quite so simple-minded as “what I did on My Summer vocation,thule” but most emed 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 homework ,and scanned it .the topic on which my eye stopped was “a drop in the oceanThe Art of Eating Spaghetti.”
This title produced an extraordinary quence of mental images. Vivid memories came flooding back 合同英语of a night in Belleville when all of us were ated around the supper table-Uncle Allen , my mother, Uncle Charlie机械翻译, Doris ,Uncle Hal-and Aunt Pat rved spaghetti for supper. 生物燃料Spaghetti was still a little known foreign dish in tho days .Neither Doris nor I had good at it . All the good humor of Uncle Allencust’s hou remoke in my mind as I recalled the laughting arguments we had that night about the socially respectable method for moving spaghetti from 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. Ty was a moment I wante
d to recapture and hold for mylf. 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 something el for Mr fleagle after had written this thing for mylf.
When I finished it the night was half gone and there was no time left to compo 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 pasd before Mr. Fleagle returned the graded papers, and he returned everyone’s but mine. I was preparing mylf 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,”bugtrap 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. Listen-ing attentively. Then somebody laughe
d ,then the entire class was laughing, and not I contempt and laughed , 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 ay this demonstration that my words had the power to make people laugh. In the eleventh hour as it were , I had discovered a calling. It was the happiest moment grade, at the eleventh hour as it were, I had discovered a calling. I it was the happiest moment of my happiness by saying, “now that, boys, is an essay, don’t you e. It’s-don’t you e –it’s of the very esnce of essay, don’全国英语四六级成绩查询入口t you e. jindouC托福报名考试ongratulations, Mr. Baker.”
