LETTERS FROM HOME: JOURNALISM TEACHER TANS BUT NOT IN THE NUDE AND OTHER NEWS

Sept. 11, 1997

Dear Patty,

The story of your life has a way of revealing itself to you if you're paying attention.

Thanks to a teacher at a nearby high school, I understand why I chose my profession instead of hers.

She had asked me to talk to her newspaper staff, and I agreed even though I'd rather wrestle Idi Amin -- dead or alive -- than speak in public. But teaching isn't really public speaking. It's more like a WWF struggle for attention.

So there I was, explaining the difference between features and hard news, talking about interviewing techniques, the importance of listening, the thrill when you hear someone say the words that practically write the story for you.

And there I was, trying to interpret the looks on the students' faces. The girl sitting in the front looked interested. Also familiar. Turns out she was in last year's high school play. Maybe she was acting interested.

She asked about my credentials for reviewing drama. I see a lot of it, I said.

Those are my credentials for talking about newspaper writing, I guess. Seeing a lot of it.

Standing in front of a class, you appreciate the people who make eye contact but also notice the blank stares. I know one version of that look. I cultivated it all through high school and college. It says, "Don't call on me because speaking up in a group is frightening."

As opposed to the "Don't call on me because I don't know" look at a spot on the floor.

Maybe those are just the stares kids give their parents, the different-generations, no-habla-what's-in-your-head looks.

Stand-up comedy must be less treacherous than teaching.

Most of these kids are probably in the class because they want to give journalism a try, and they have a big head start on me. I was just finishing my junior year in high school before the first thought about journalism seeped into my head.

My English teacher, Mrs. Long, was looking for a sports editor for the following year's yearbook staff, so she gave her junior classes a sports writing exercise. When the time came to announce whose sports writing she preferred, everybody -- including me -- expected one of the jocks to be named.

As I recall the moment, there was a collective gasp and turning of heads in my direction when she smiled and said the name of this 100-pound weakling who never said anything in class. I was pleasantly mortified.

I told a version of that story to the journalism class. More blank stares. But maybe the message -- that you must find some way to communicate with the world -- made it through.

I wanted them to know that whether athlete, dancer, accountant, musician, artist, physician, waitress, orator, architect, teacher, writer or bricklayer, everyone has a singular way of expressing themself. And that if we're listening and watching, they will tell us their story.

Near the end of the class, I asked for a volunteer to interview the teacher in a role-playing exercise meant to prove that point. The class' Bill Murray raised her hand. She asked if the teacher tans (yes) and if she does it nude (no).

OK, I said, now go deeper. Eventually we discovered that the teacher previously was in the mortuary business and hilariously told of her frightened aversion to it. She chose the aliveness she found in the halls of a high school instead.

There's the story, I said as if we'd discovered the Northwest Passage.

More stares but different ones, this time directed at the clock counting down the seconds until the last bell of the day would ring. I remember that look from high school, too.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.