You call this stuff writing!

By Joe Walther

 

Last night I found a folder. Inside was a paper that I had written forty-one years ago. In 1966, during a brief medical reprieve from duty in Vietnam, I decided to kill a couple of months by taking a formal journalism course at a small liberal arts college then named California Western University located at Point Loma, California.

 

            On the first day of class—there were only twenty students registered—the professor, Dr. Archibald, told us that his job was to “mold us mud piles into writers.” He then gave the class what he called an “assessment” assignment. Each of us had to write a 1,500-word editorial piece on why we decided to take a formal journalism course.

 

            Many wounded Vietnam veterans went through rehabilitation in San Diego, California. I was one of them. A Washington Post reporter had risked his life back in those jungles to pull me to safety. This is what piqued my interests in journalism. I enrolled in this course as a positive way to pass the 4-months before returning to Vietnam. I figured that I could write this paper without any effort at all. Little did I know.

 

            I finished my piece the day before the deadline. I saved every draft. The finished piece would surely get me nominated for a Pulitzer. It clearly answered the questions: what, who, when, why, where, and how. It possessed the perfect mix of fact and emotion. Besides, most of the others in the class were inexperienced: mere longhaired, pimply-faced, undergraduates. Freshmen and sophomores at that! I, on the other hand, was a mature combat veteran of twenty-four. I could not miss on this one.

 

            Dr. Archibald returned the graded assignments the first class after we turned them in. I hate to admit this, but I had completely missed a minor flaw in Professor Archibald’s personality. Apparently, Professor Archibald was an asshole!

 

            Not one paper received a passing grade. In fact, every paper had a handwritten note at the top, IN RED, “An F is too good a grade for this garbage!” Now, I could certainly understand the way he felt relative to the other students in the course. After all, they were pot-smoking dweebs who could barely read the funnies. None of them had ever been outside of California, let alone outside of the United States.

 

            But ME? What about my Pulitzer? Who did this jerk think he was dealing with? I distinctly remember my mother telling me what a good writer I was. And had Father Spragg, my high school English teacher, lied to me. I think NOT!

 

            I estimated the amount of red ink used for the seemingly endless litany of critical remarks, written on MY paper alone, at around two and a half gallons. The good professor made no bones about the fact that he would not tolerate sloppy organization, misspellings, poor punctuation, and a total disregard for grammatical integrity. It was also quite clear that he was not going to let any of us baffle him with bullshit, either. Oh, boy, did he ever make that point crystal clear.

 

            He was looking right at me as he spoke. The veins in his forehead bulged as his rage intensified. He reached over my desk, grabbed my paper, and began to read random sections—sarcasm oozing from his mocking voice. “It has been said that journalists represent a nation’s social conscience…,” he droned. Then, as some bile, drooling from his mouth started to drip from his chin, he hissed, “Where did you get this crap? Not only is it CRAP, it’s sickening. In passive voice, too! Only idiots write in passive voice.”

 

            His gaze had turned to a strained glare by now. It looked as though blood had begun welling up in his eye sockets. He seemed to squint and his voice was giving out. His face reeked with disgust. Looking me in the eyes, he wondered aloud as to how I was able to breathe on my own. He questioned whether my parents knew that I was not in my room. He told the rest of the class that society should shun a person who writes like this because they present a boring menace to society. “This is awful stuff. All of you stink,” he shouted and stomped out of the room.

 

            Most of the others in the class just stared off into space waiting for him to return, except for Stanley, who was still taking notes. Enthusiastically, too! I wasn’t sure how I felt. Part of me wanted to slink out of the room and die quickly. Another part of me wanted to grab and choke the hell out this self-aggrandizing twit. Anyway, we all waited for him to return. Only, he didn’t return, so we all left… that is, all of us but Stanley, who was still taking notes.

 

            The next week, the class roster had shrunk to nine students, including Stanley, who was still taking notes. In fact, I’m not sure that he had ever left from the week before. Anyway, Dr. Archibald, upon entering the room, looked at us and declared. “Ah, this is a much more manageable number.” There was no sarcasm in his voice and his demeanor was quite jovial.

 

            “Mr. Fugere—Stanley’s last name—stop writing and listen. You may learn something.” The atmosphere in the room was much more relaxed, too. It appeared as though the “Mr. Hyde potion had worn off. Looking at me, he said, “Dr. Walther, (He called me Dr. throughout the entire semester.) I don’t know if you can write, but I’m sure that you want to try and that’s good enough for me.” All nine of us finished his course with passing grades.

 

            Dr. Archibald is long dead. But, as I reread that 41-year old paper, I found myself reflecting on all of that red ink. Soon, I was in a rage, bile drooling down my chin. My eyeballs began to bulge out of their sockets as the blood oozed in. The veins in my temples were throbbing and I caught myself hissing, “This isn’t writing. It’s maudlin, unmitigated garbage. If I had a student hand this into me, I’d flunk the dork out of the human race!”

 

            Sweet dreams, Professor Archibald, and THANKS. Of course, writing teachers can no longer  treat students the way Dr. Archibald did without getting their butts sued off. On the other hand, I don’t think he would have cared. We need more Professor Archibalds.

 

See you all next week.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.