After re-reading some of the notes Alpha wrote, I got to wondering whatever happened to those”writing gems” she kept that I wrote while I was her student.  Sure would love to re-read them to see what she saw in them, but I don’t suppose that will ever be possible.I don’t think she sent them to me when she retired; if she did, they may be in the trunk in my garage.

 

Fortunately, I do remember two of them and the comments she made about them at the time.

 

THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION

 

The first one I recall was a parody I wrote about the Lewis and Clark expedition.  I don’t recall anything more of the piece except for the one paragraph Alpha told me cracked her up.  It went something like this: “Well, to make a long story short, the Lewis and Clark Expedition took about two and a half weeks.  You may ask how it took only two and a half weeks to get from the east to the west coast using only canoes and horses, but you have to remember: the country was much smaller back then!”

Thinking of that now, it reminds me of those little sponge toys that we used to get that, when immersed in water, enlarged to more than three times their size. That happens when a continent sits in oceans, right?!!!  (I wonder if that’s what gave me the idea back then. I have NO idea!)

 

If (big if!) the rest of the piece was equally clever, I can understand — even with my now- advanced writing skills — why she thought it was so clever! Comedy of the absurd!

 

BECKY THATCHER

 

The other piece was about Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.  I remember exactly nothing about that one at all, but Alpha’s comment about it will remain with me for the rest of my life.

 

I was — and remain — a huge Mark Twain fan.  So, of course, I had to put my knowledge of his turns of phrase and Southern vernacular to good use.  When I turned that one in, she read it and marvelled, “Kris, I have no idea how you manage to do what you do. If I didn’t know better, I would swear Mark Twain had written this himself!”  *sigh* 

 

Talk about high praise. Stick a fork in me. I’m done!

So, you can see why I credit Mrs.Rossetti with my pursuit of a writing career.

She helped me believe in my ability to string words together and earn a positive response from readers.

 

I’d love to unearth those gems, and any others I wrote during that time. Perhaps they’re in one of my earlier journals, or in my archive trunk. I’m almost afraid to go looking for them now, because I’ll be devasated if they aren’t there.

 

I SAVED THE ONES I WROTE TO THE KELLEYS

 

Luckily, whenever I wrote particularly funny letters to DeForest and Carolyn Kelley, I kept copies of them, so they’re saved in my journals. Some of them appear in my book DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal, but by no means all of them.

 

WRITING = LIFE

 

I need to write the way you need to breathe air. I don’t write to live, I live to write. Nothing is as much fun or more rewarding to me.

 

So, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, all the while sending thanks to the three teachers (Mrs. Choyce, who read my Roy Rogers stories in class when I was in grade school), Mrs. Rossetti, and Mr. Dobbs (who forced me to send The Real McCoy to DeForest Kelley in 1968, which is when my 30+year Kelley adventure really took off) and others (DeForest and Carolyn Kelley, Ted Crail, author of APETALK AND WHALESPEAK and my supervisor/mentor at the Animal Protection Institute; and Dr. Ned Buyukmihci, who called me and cried when he told me how much he loved LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE).

 

 

Yay-Sayers are the best!  I hope you had lots of yay-sayers in your corner growing up. They made all the difference in my life, for sure!