Ah me, spelling bees.
Tonight was the live-on-TV championship round of the Scripps - (Why is Howard missing?) National Spelling Bee, won by homeschooled Californian, 13-year-old Evan O'Dorney. Apparently, a love of restaraunt menus contributed to young Evan's win as he sailed through a couple of the early words (one a pasta, another a Japanese seafood soup) and on to glory, over the shoulders of a first-time Canadian competitor, Nate Gartke, also 13.
Personally, I was rooting for the newbie, in part because I tire of the "repeats," the kids who train for these things like Olympic marathons, or high school summer travel teams, where you are so completely immersed in a particular endeavor that all the fun is sucked right out of it. You know the type, where the competition ceases to be a "love of the game" kind of thing and becomes joyless, rote monotony, especially if an overly eager parent with an oddly possessive fixation on scholarships is hovering nearby.
As if to prove my point, rather than being "spellbound," as I'm sure the national advertisers footing the bill for this no-longer-relegated-to-ESPN 2 extravaganza hoped, our young winner was rather -- what's the word? -- nonplussed. Sure, it was the "final year" in which he could compete, and he'd already finished top 20 in earlier years, so a 2007 win would fall in the "only makes sense" category. But if you'll pardon me, the kid just didn't look like he was having fun. His mother appeared to be blown away by the whole thing-- maybe she was having the fun on his behalf?
Asked by a talking head whether he had changed his mind from earlier statements that he wasn't all that wild about words, he again explained why he loved math and music more: he found both fascinating and creative. Not so, spelling. That was "just a bunch of memorization," he said, memorization which he apparently had had more than enough of in his young life. But like it or not, he let the Scripps-no-longer-Howard rep help him hoist that trophy high. Please people, tell me: what is wrong with this picture?
Forgive me, but I'd prefer a winner who, like the Canadian competitor, can laugh in the middle of a pronounciation. I'd prefer to see a winner who is totally enraptured with spelling, one who watched "Wheel of Fortune" nearly from the womb, or just likes the sound of letters-- any letter-- rolling off the tongue. I prefer a kid who has not forgotten how to be a kid amidst all that dictionary study. Frankly, I prefer a kid whose parents set limits on the amount of time he was allowed to rehearse/study his vocab words, and kicked him outside, into the fresh air, when time was up. I'd prefer someone for whom spelling and wordsmithing is a passion, not a mission.
I do know a little bit of whence I speak. At the ripe old age of I'm-not-telling-what, I competed this past February in my first spelling bee since Mrs. Schenk's fourth-grade class. Granted, the bee was comprised solely of adults, teamed in trios, seated at tables where we were allowed to scratch down spellings before a designated orator relayed the group-consensus, so it was nothing like the pressure these kids are facing at the microphone, sans scratch paper, in front of millions tuned in to TVs around the country. But it sure was fun! (Plus it served to benefit a good cause, too: Literacy Volunteers of Ontario County.) Rather than sending the other teams "To Spell in a Handbasket," the fearless Messenger trio ended up going there themselves, falling on the word "obreptitious." (And yes, that is spelled correctly. I kept notes of each word for all the tables in each round -- we were allowed to -- and after our team missed that one, I was sure to save the correct spelling. ) Naturally, the team spelling after us had a relatively easy word, something simple like "solace," making our elimination complete. Nevertheless, that was too much fun to not hanker for a second go-round. Seriously.
So I have one small request for the Scripps-minus-Howard National Bee organizers already hunkering down to plan next year's contest: Clearly, Howard was the entity responsible for the "fun" , so would you please bring him back?
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