If you've never been, you owe it to yourself to attend a spelling bee. It's a very underappreciated spectator event, and it really helps remind you of your place on the gray-matter ladder of evolution.
I have two spelling bee stories - one from years back, and a great one from yesterday.
Years ago when I wrote for the St. Joseph Gazette, I was covering a regional spelling be at the Ramada Inn. The contestants were all seated in chairs on a temporary stage set up in a ballroom, a temporary curtain behind them.
Pretty noticeable in the back row was a kind of big kid who just had "the look" that he wouldn't last two rounds. He was tipping back on the back legs of his chair, resting his elbows on something unseen, making faces and trying to talk with his nervous neighbors.
All of a sudden, there was a quick flash of bright light and the kid was gone!!!
Turns out he was leaning his elbows on the push bar of a fire exit door and he leaned back too far, causing him to take a tumbling exit into the parking lot. He wasn't hurt ... but he didn't win the bee.
Yesterday afternoon at the Columbia Daily Tribune Regional Spelling Bee, 53 contestants from third to eighth grade competed with words like shogun, cantata, langosta and incorruptible; the winner spelled neptunium correctly. (I think the long ones are sometimes the toughest.)
One young man stepped up to the microphone in the second round and was given the word caucus. It's a good word, in the news in this election year, and I thought if he even glanced at the Daily Tribune in preparation, he might know it.
He repeated the word, somewhat with a questioning emphasis. The announcer repeated it for him.
The boy, without asking for definition, language of origin, or any of the other time-extending options spelling bee contestants can use to buy time, began: "Caucus - c - o - c - k" (pause, again looking questionably at the announcer) "a - s - s." Caucus."
He must have thought it strange to be asked to spell a "dirty word(s)" in public, at a spelling bee, but he did his duty.
Deftly supressing a snicker, the announcer said, "I'm sorry, that's incorrect," and spelled the word correctly for the lad, who seemed eased to be removed from further pressure. Afterall, it was an unseasonable 80 and still sunny outside.
