This evening Hope and I decided to blow off a little steam and relax by taking in a movie. Being a well-known cheap-ass, it was to the $1.50 movie theater to see a movie that’s been out for a long while. Since I wasn’t thrilled by any of the movies that were being shown (other than the DaVinci Code, which we’ve already seen), I let Hope decide. It didn’t really matter much to me, since she was buying me popcorn and a drink. Hope’s final choice was between RV and Akeelah and the Bee. You probably know which one we chose based on the title of this post.Akeelah and the Bee is about this girl who gets roped into being in a spelling bee by her greedy school principal. Akeelah’s a really good speller, so things explode and she eventually goes to the national spelling bee in Washington, DC. It was almost a tear-jerker. But, oh did it bring back memories — memories of my time as a spelling champion.
I’m not sure when it started for me. It wasn’t brought on by the tragic death of anyone around me, as in this movie. Probably it was brought on by being a spaz. I remember blowing my fourth grade spelling bee and coming in second. The word that tripped me up: papoose. How the hell could I forget that? I might get Alzheimer’s, but I won’t ever forget how to spell that one. I remember carrying my chair back to my classroom from the cafetorium feeling like shit for coming in second. I felt even worse because I wasn’t athletic enough to make any event for our school’s track meet. It was me and the fat kid. At least I was a totally better speller than the fat kid. Suck it, fat kid!
In middle school, I took my game to the next level. In sixth grade, I won the school spelling bee. I layed waste to the pathetic attempts by even seventh and eigth graders to bring me down. I don’t remember much about the county spelling bee, but I vaguely remember going. It was probably because of the hookers and beer my middle school gave me for winning.
When I moved from Michigan to Indiana, I thought that I was officially retired. I don’t think they had spelling bees in Indiana. They did have something called Spell Bowl though. Other than D&D, chess club and a couple years of wrestling, Spell Bowl was my major extra-curricular activity. It’s kind of sad, but it’s true. Spell Bowl is a team spelling competition. Each school fields a team of ten spellers who have eight words that they must spell correctly. Another thing that makes it different from the traditional bee format is that you write the words down, which makes it have a lower level of excitement. I struggled on that team for three long years of getting solid ass whoopings. Finally, in my senior year, as team captain, we stunned everyone at the regionals and made our way to the state competition. It was so big time that I even got to speak at a convocation about how we were going to bring home the “strophe”. Strophe was a word on one of our study lists. I’m sure most of the people thought I was a complete dumbass. “Didn’t he mean ‘trophy’? What a dumbass! I can probably spell better than he can.” As I said, my tremendous spelling abilities came from being a spaz.
Two things from this movie jump out at me.
First, studying Greek, Latin and foreign languages are a real plus in helping you spell. When I tutored SAT prep classes, I pulled out huge stacks of Greek and Latin word lists and introduced the concepts of quickly building up vocabulary by drawing from these sources. It was enough to make Morpheus proud. Kids hated it. But if they would have given it a bit more, they would’ve made their parents proud (and broke) by being accepted to the most prestigious schools around.
Secondly, I was driven by the thought of the prologue to the Akeelah story. Sure, Akeelah was an amazing speller for an eleven year old girl. But what would happen after that. She admits in the movie that she’s not good at anything else. She could one day find herself in her thirties (probably working in customer service) writing a blog about the good old days of when she was a spelling champ. This while all of her former classmates who were good at math, football and acting all sat in their mansions wondering, “Akeelah who?” Congratulations on being a good fucking speller. Hope you had fun while it lasted, smart ass.
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