Way back, when I attended both high school and college, I was required to take English classes. Parts of English study used to consist of Shakespeare, grammar, parts of speech, vocabulary, spelling, and creative writing.
To this day I still have trouble with Shakespeare, grammar, parts of speech, vocabulary, and spelling, largely, I believe, because of my inheriting the “Bad English Gene.”
Thank goodness for computers that are willing and able to assist with all of the above via Spell-Check, Grammatik, and the like, helping people similar to me – and especially me – stumble my way through life both on and off the interweb, much the same way calculators aid people with questionable arithmetic abilities.
Astute readers should recognize I left out “creative writing” from the list of genetic shortcomings, and it’s because that’s where we’ll begin today’s story.
While I can’t speak for me fellow classmates, I can certainly state my creative writing attempts in school were solid earnest attempts toward graduating since there were no computers to help mask my other hereditary weaknesses.
Sadistic teachers – they were called “teachers” then because they taught rather than “educate” – regularly handed out writing assignments usually over long, holiday weekends and vacation breaks.
Of course there were themes along with story/essay portions that needed to be considered, plus the dreaded ‘word count.”
The simple version of writing is as follows: 1.) Beginning 2.) Middle 3.) Conclusion, usually in that order; the word count only added to the angst and misery which taught students how to drink to excess. But I digress.
Our family was poor so, I didn’t have access to a typewriter. But I did have access to a spiral bound notebooks with which I scribbled out my beginning, middle, and conclusions.
Here’s where the actual “creative” portion of the writing exercise came into play.
The aforementioned word count was set by the teacher to prevent lazy students from writing two short paragraphs and calling it a day. It further prevented those teacher’s pets from writing a novel along the lines of War and Peace, which had to be judged by the teachers.
Those word counts often ranged between 500 and 2000 words; that is a lot of writing when you’re trying to enjoy holiday time away from school.
Word counts were not supposed to include words such as “a,” “the,” “of,” “and,” plus “I,” along with a handful of other members of the alphabet.
In case you’re wondering how much writing 500 words is, from the beginning of this story to now, you’ve read about 421 words; but that includes the aforementioned words not to be counted, for the record.
Go ahead and count. I’ll stop writing and wait for you.
Imagination goes a long way in creative writing, along with a sub-category, speech writing.
So it is with interest that I try to read as many speeches of Vice President Kamala Harris, as is humanly possible without turning to grain alcohol as a crutch.
VP Harris rode President Joseph Robinette Biden’s coattails into the current administration because she is what I call an “affirmative action hire.”
In other words, VP Harris got the job because she met the stringent criteria established by candidate Biden when on the campaign trail for his vice president, if elected.
He succinctly said his pick for VP would be a black woman. And he did not disappoint. Kinda.
Evidently it was important to then-Vice President Biden to select a running mate based solely on sex and race; merit, be damned.
Soon after taking office, President Biden assigned VP Harris one of several new tasks as a way to earn her money as a guvment employee. The humor begins here.
Over the course of the next month's VP Harris tried to appear likeable. But like Hillary Clinton, she was unable to meet that unachievable goal. Time after time, the VP would turn toward the closest cameras to pretend she enjoyed and understood her job.
And time after time she stumbled like a sot on Saturday night just prior to last call at the bar. Her faux smile, accompanied by an equally fake laugh quickly brought her lack of any practical skills to the forefront.
One of her ancillary duties was to make a public service announcement by and for children, attempting to entice a younger generation of Americans toward a career in aeronautical science.
She appeared on camera surrounded
by children – most of whom, if not all, were from
And not unlike my creative writing adventures, Harris struggled to make sense out of what the PSA was about while validating her appearance promoting something of which she knew nothing.
Suddenly, her ad lib speaking was labeled a “word salad,” implying it was indecipherable, largely because it was. But still she continued with her public appearances as though she was a rock star.
However, now those audience laughs were at her, not with her. And pity had descended upon her because of her unapologetic arrogance. Her staff began leaving enmass, including her speechwriter, who likely departed to avoid any further embarrassment.
Each public appearance continues to give the façade of unpreparedness as she repeats and re-repeats, and re-re-repeats the same line and sticking point as though she was writing a school paper herself.
Thinking back to my school days of creative writing, I can only imagine VP Harris is continually giving oral presentations of her latest public assignments with the caveat she gives them with an assigned word count quota. And just for you anal-retentive types, the word count here now stands at 978.
End the blather. It’s clear by the exodus of her staff she isn’t paying heed to their suggestions. By the way, she’s not getting paid by the word.
