By Dad

Ronnie Discovers a Power

by Dad, Posted on

Ronnie Roo walked back and forth in her tiny room, her hands clasped behind her back, her lips tightly pursed and slightly frowning.  Every now and then she would stop pacing, put her right hand to her chin, and say, “Hmmm.”  Then she would shake her head and continue as she was.

After ten minutes of this, she finally forced herself into the chair at her desk and set her fingers to the keyboard of her old IBM typewriter.  “I’m gonna do it,” she said.  “I don’t care what I write, but I’m gonna write it.  No matter what comes out, that’s what gets written.”  It was, and always had been, her sheer determination that pushed her.  She had worked hard to get where she was, and a little writer’s block was NOT going to take her down.

Her fingers started moving, and before long, she had her first sentence:

I looked over across the room, and noticed a cold glass of Mountain Dew on the counter, drops of condensation dripping down and puddling around it.

As she finished, she looked up and suddenly noticed the drink on her counter, exactly as she had described it on the page.  Startled, but committed to finishing her story, she started writing again:

Before long, a knock at the door.

And just as she finished writing it, there was a knock at her door.  Rushing over, she opened it.  No one was there.  “Of course not,” she thought, “I haven’t said who yet.”  So she sat down again to write:

It was an anvil salesman.

It took her five minutes to convince the visitor that had interrupted her that she had absolutely no need or desire for an anvil.  Once he was gone, she thought for a few moments, trying to think of something that could never in a million years be considered a coincidence:

Quite suddenly, a blue penguin walked in through the window, picked up the glass of Mountain Dew, and drank it.

She had never seen a blue penguin… not until the very moment she finished typing.  When he had finished the drink, and gone back to wherever it is that blue penguins come from, Ronnie considered her new found power and tried to think of a way she might take advantage of it.  Finally, she smiled and wrote:

My mind went blank.  Without even thinking about it, I quickly typed up a full length, award winning novel, finishing it just as a book publisher called me to ask if I had anything they could use this summer.

Sam The Sport

by Dad, Posted on

In a small village east of Indianapolis but west of Terre Haute, a young boy stared at his desktop… at the lumpy rag he could just barely see. Beneath the rag, was his prized possession. His Bee-Whacker. A gift from his father on his thirteenth birthday, who thought him old enough to start on his Bee-Whacking apprenticeship. He had a hard time sleeping, knowing that early in the morning his brother would take him Bee-Whacking. He finally drifted to sleep, and dreamt of becoming the Bee-Whacking champion, and of people comparing him to the ultimate Bee-Whacker, Sam.

The next morning, he rushed out with his brother, not even bothering to stop for breakfast. His Bee-Whacker in hand, he was ready to take on the world, and he barely listened to the instructions given to him by his older, more experienced brother.

He saw his first bee close to the field situated near his back yard. He rushed at it and swung. The bee flew away. His brother had stopped walking, and simply watched, while he went from one bee to another, swinging, and mostly missing.

After his tenth swing, he grew frustrated. He threw the Bee-Whacker to the ground and stomped his feet. “I’ll never be a good Bee-Whacker,” he yelled. “I’ll never be like Sam.”

His brother sighed and put his arm around the boy. “Listen, being a good Bee-Whacker is more than just being able to hit them. If you want to be a good Bee-Whacker, you have to look at the great ones—at how they lived their lives… not just how they whacked bees.

“Sam the Man wasn’t just good at swinging a Whacker, he was a sportsman, through and through. He had patience, and he didn’t let himself get angry when things went wrong. He treated everybody with respect, and never tried to hurt people. If you want to be more like Sam, you have to learn about his overall character, and emulate that. Then you’ll become a truly great Bee-Whacker.”

“You’re right,” the boy said. “I’m gonna try to be more like Sam.”

“You mean you’re going to try to be more like Sam,” his brother said. “Remember… Sam didn’t care for grammatical errors. They called him English.”

“Okay,” the boy said, smiling. “Let’s go whack some bees. Maybe I’ll even hit one so hard it’ll stick to the Bee-Whacker.”