"It's a d@*% poor mind that can't come up with more than one way to spell a word" -President Andrew Jackson

Spelling has never been my strong suit. I have struggled with it for as long as I can remember.


I do feel, however, that I have been able learn from many of my spelling mistakes and, over time, have improved my spelling skills dramatically.

Of course, I also felt that way back in my junior year of high school when the Post Register hired me as a junior reported/columnist for their weekly teen page. I was pretty excited about what I considered to be a pretty prestigious honor... until I ran into my 5th grade teacher in the sock aisle at Wal-Mart. After I spent a good four minutes gushing about my adventures working for one of the largest newspapers in the state, I paused to allow Mrs. Montgomery time to agree with my assessment of my own coolness. Instead, she looked at me with sad eyes and said, "Oh sweetie... do they know you can't spell?"

Needless to say I was crushed.
Crestfallen.
Ashamed.
Dejected.

That one conversation held amongst the Hanes Assorted Performance Athletic Socks scarred me for life.

And yet, somehow I manged to rise above that lowest of low moments. I continued to write for the Post Register on into college.
And then I helped pay my way through Ricks College as a staff writer and later editor of the Scroll.

And, when I went on to become the News Editor at the ISU paper, I thought that I had finally thrown off the chains of self-doubt that had been soldered around my soul that day in Wal-Mart. Free at last, free at last! Thank you, Spellcheck! Free at last!

Later on, I became a teacher.

An English teacher.

A teacher whose main responsibilities include correcting the spelling of other carbon-based life forms.

Then, at the end of the summer, my principal delivered some news that made my heart soar (and my brain wonder if Mrs. Montgomery is on Facebook so I could pass on the news to her).

I couldn't wait to share this wonderful development in my professional life with those dearest to me: My Family. So I shot off a text and then basked in the warm, LED display glow of their texted congratulatory responses.

And then my brother Spencer called. My jock brother who suddenly morphed into a double-Masters-degree-holding brainiac. He called to congratulate me... and to point out that I had misspelled a pretty important word in my text message. Two thousand miles away, my jock brother had caught what the rest of my family, including my English teacher mother, had missed. And he was reveling in the irony of situation. Reveling.

And I reveled with him. After all, it was, as ironic situations go, a pretty darn good one.


We had a good laugh, and then I told him that his keen intellect was wasted working with professional athletes.

That Spencer. Such a sweet guy.

That little experience reminded me of another time that he had rendered vital assistance in my writing-related endeavors.

When he played model in the accompanying artwork for my in-depth expose on back to school fashion.

I felt that posting this photo for the world to see would be a good way to repay him for being such a devoted, irony-loving brother. Thanks, Spence. (Oh, and my new group of kids loooooooved your being-arrested-on-the-school-bus-in-ninth-grade-for-mooning-a-cop story. I'm getting much better at telling it. In fact, this year, the story seemed to take on a new life. Thanks for the added inspiration)

Postscript: Spellcheck informs me that the original version of this post contained 15 misspelled words, including: Register, columnist, aisle, conversation, amongst, performance, soldered , Spellcheck, responsibilities, congratulatory, congratulate, reveling, endeavors, accompanying, and original.