My interview was scheduled for noon. It’s not every day you are a keynote speaker for Miss Bernice’s fourth-grade class career day, via video call. I wore a necktie.
Miss Bernice’s class has been interviewing a lot of people lately about their careers by using video calls. She has been introducing the kids to people with different occupations from all over the U.S.
So far, her class has welcomed guests from all fields. The class has interviewed PhDs, celebrated journalists, famous musicians, chefs, well-known songwriters, people who work in finance, pro fishermen, doctors, and anyone else who drives a Range Rover.
I was scheduled to go on after the decorated navy pilot.
While the fighter pilot gave his presentation, I started to feel like a an idiot. I looked at the little camera image of myself on my laptop screen and cringed. My red hair was disheveled, my face looked tired. The bags beneath my eyes could have been used for a Samsonite ad.
Captain America wowed his audience, and I was trying to remember when
and why I became a writer in the first place.
Truthfully, I don’t know when exactly I first wanted to be a writer. I can’t remember ever NOT wanting to be one.
Still, I think it must have happened officially for me in the fourth grade. That was the year our teacher read “Where the Red Fern Grows.”
She would read aloud to us after lunch period, every weekday for an hour. And she did all the voices.
It takes real talent to do the character voices right.
That beautiful woman with the cat-eye glasses and the coiffed hair possessed such talent. I can never forget that period of my life.
We would file into the classroom after gorging ourselves in the cafeteria. She would turn off the lights, sit by the window, and read to us.
Students would gather around her like disciples…