Use Your Words

I am absolutely giddy right now with the anticipation of coaching a brand new homeschool speech and debate team, with one of my best buddies, one I met years ago doing college theater. We'll be competing in the same league, against some of the same schools, that I competed against as a kid.

I did not enter high school intending to study either speech or debate. The opportunity sort of snuck up on me. Some of my fondest memories of high school come from debate tournaments; I never would have predicted that.

In honor of this exciting new adventure, here's my memory of my first speech contests. I now help organize my Rotary Club's speech contests; life comes full circle.

*************************

I listened to myself arguing with my husband recently. My angry retort included the phrase, "That is why I can lend absolutely no credence to your assertion…" I'm used to the way I think and speak, and even I found myself thinking, "Who talks that way?"

Dan has always been flustered by the way I argue. "I can't argue with you. You were on the debate team," he used to say when we were dating, and even when we were newlyweds. It drove me crazy.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I'd fume. "If you have a valid point, it remains valid." He was used to determining who was "right" or who "won" by tallying up which of us had the last word; or, alternately, seeing which one of us expressed themselves the best. I was used to both sides weighing what the other had to say. Eloquence is nice, but it doesn't mean the well expressed opinion is the right one.

By some quirk of personality, I express myself best when I'm angry. I'm not a shlump in daily conversation, but I become blazingly articulate when I'm upset. It's a skill honed during adolescence. My friend Dave is convinced that it's a skill also helped along by the fact that I don't swear. Eliminate certain words from a person's vocabulary, and they have to work harder at expressing opinions. I remember fondly Dave's reaction when I described someone as a waste of the air he breathes.

It must be frustrating to be married to someone who becomes better able to express themselves the angrier that they get.

You'd think that I'd enjoy arguing, given this proclivity, that I'd be one of those people who uses verbal jousting as a form of entertainment. In fact, I dislike it. I've learned not to run from conflict, to meet it head on. If need be, I'll be the one to instigate – when a complaint needs to be made to a company about shoddy service, for instance. Still, I do not enjoy conflict.

Ariane, my high school best friend, has an entirely different approach. She thrives on verbal jousting. It took me a long time to understand that about her. I remember being frustrated with her during our senior year, and asking her, "Why do you pick fights?"

"I don't!"

"Yes, you do! You do it all the time. You will deliberately pick a fight."

She didn't quite see it the same way I did. "I just like to see how people express themselves," she explained. She wanted to know how they would support their opinions, especially under duress. She chose volatile subjects and incited strong feelings because she felt that was when she was likeliest to get the purest form of the other person's opinions, she explained.

It was a totally foreign concept to me. I have spent my entire life feeling that we should all just get along and that everyone should find common ground. Ticking people off to see how they expressed themselves was something that never would have occurred to me. It surprises no one that Ariane became an attorney.

The high school debate team was full of lawyers in training and lawyer wannabes. It's excellent practice for someone who will make their living navigating the legal system.

I always felt that those of us who were also actors had an edge over the others. When competing in debate, whether on a team or solo, you are required to argue both sides of an issue. During one round, you will have to convincingly argue for whatever the current proposition is. During the next round, you must argue just as convincingly against it. Either way, you are expected to have documentation to back up your assertions. Actors are used to being convincing while having someone else's words come out of their mouth.

Of course, there are generally debate team members who dislike the actors, who feel that they are less intelligent, less intellectual and just generally too frivolous to be competing against serious minded, brilliant folks like themselves. It's annoying.

I first competed in debate during my sophomore year. The school was frequently sent notices of speech contests in the area, and these notices were always given to the debate team adviser. Frankly, I think the information should be broadcast more widely than that, but the assumption is, or at least was then, that the debate team members are the students who will be interested in and capable of such speeches. So, as a sophomore, I learned of a speech contest sponsored by a local Elks Club.

Four of us ended up representing the school. There was no qualifying task; the adviser just took those of us who were interested. Three of us were also actors. The competitors were myself, Chris, Suzy and Merrie. Suzy, Merrie and I were actors. Chris was a senior and the captain of the debate team. After high school, he was headed to a prestigious school back East on a hefty scholarship.

It was generally accepted that Chris would win, and the rest of us were just along for the ride. Chris especially seemed to think so. He found it to be unconscionable that mere actors were allowed to participate. This was a Serious Event, to be attended by Serious Students who had done Thoughtful Research. I don't know if it bothered him that we were female; I don't recall him being particularly sexist. I did get the distinct impression that he thought I was also too young to be of any consequence, even though Suzy and I were in the same grade. He seemed to be upset that more seniors couldn't compete. He cut Suzy some slack since it was her second year on the team and she'd proven her worth. Merrie and I got no such concession. At least Merrie was a junior, not a lowly underclassman.

The contest topic was, "Freedom and Its Responsibilities." I rolled that thought around in my head for a few days before I started to write anything. I didn't want to fall on my face the first time out, especially since it would confirm Chris' opinion that actors were inferior. We had to submit a written copy of our speech to our adviser to be approved before we competed. I gave mine to the teacher, rather anxious about what she would say.

I expected to be given some revisions to make. Instead, when she handed it back, she had nothing more to say than, "Good job." I was slightly puzzled, but glad that she liked it. I thought I had some pretty sound points. If she had no revisions, she must feel it was ready to go

The competition was to be held during an Elks Club lunch, so we got out of school to go. We all dressed up, and our teacher drove us to the luncheon. It was held in the Sky Room at the Mapes Hotel, a plush downtown property. The Sky Room was on the top floor, with windows all the way around two sides. The view was gorgeous. The hotel had, in the past, entertained such luminaries as Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. I don't remember what we ate, but I remember that we ate it at a table in front of the room, facing the club members. I worried a lot about spilling food on myself or displaying manners that would shoot down my chances.

I don't remember in what order we spoke. I thought I delivered my speech well, and that my actor's training helped. Never let 'em see you sweat. It's an asset to be able to appear unruffled when you're unsure and intimidated. It was also easier to do when I was presenting my own ideas.

I think we were all shocked when the winner was announced, and it was me. I remember being called up to the podium, the audience smiling and applauding, and the presenter sincerely congratulating me. Merrie and Suzy were both happy for me, but Chris looked like the proverbial ton of bricks had fallen on him. In his universe, it was supposed to be his award, and I was supposed to be filler, someone to take the slot that gave us enough participants to compete. He was not supposed to lose to a sophomore drama student!

The hotel was across the street from the bank building where my mother worked. I insisted that we all go across and up to the 15^th floor to tell her before we went back to school.

Today, my mother would probably be called an administrative assistant or something of the sort. Back then, she was called a legal secretary. She was the office manager, typist, bookkeeper, appointment book and general right hand of an attorney. He and his brother had a practice together in what was then the First National Bank building.

Someone, maybe the teacher, worried about us just dropping in on the office. I was sure it would be just fine, and insisted as much. We trooped across the street and up in the elevators, teenagers and their keeper loose in the downtown business district.

I introduced everyone to my mother. Chris smiled politely. He didn't say or do anything that was outright rude. He was too controlled for that. He did, however, sulk all the way back to the school. After the obligatory remarks to me immediately after the competition, I'm not sure if he ever spoke to me again. Word was, he never quite got over being furious and feeling cheated.

Back at school, the teacher dropped a small bomb on me, one I was immediately glad she'd saved for after the competition. "When I read your speech, I didn't understand it," she said.

I was floored. "What?"

"Well, you know, you used the words 'however' and 'although' right next to each other. I didn't see how that would work. But when I heard you say it, it made sense."

My mind spun. She'd told me it was good when she read it! How is it even possible, I wondered, that she has a college degree, is currently at work on her Master's Thesis, and she could not understand the writing of a high school sophomore? If she had told me this before the competition, it would have completely thrown me. I would have been convinced that the fault was mine, that the ideas were unclear and badly expressed. Having just won, though, having not only won but won against Chris, I knew the speech was good. Other people obviously "got it." I had to entertain the new and frankly frightening thought that my teacher was, well, perhaps not very well suited to her profession.

Maybe it was this kind of angst that contributed to the process of creating the next speech I used in a contest. This time, we were not required to submit the text beforehand. Consequently, I did not put anything down on paper until I was in the bus, on the way to the contest, this time for the Rotary Club.

I won.

My mother, while proud, was beside herself. "What can I say to you? If you'd lost, I could say, 'Well, if you had prepared, you might have won.' What am I supposed to say now?"

I tried to explain my processes to her. I had composed the speech in my head weeks earlier, and had simply been fine tuning since then. By the time I write anything down, I have rolled the words around in my head, trying out and discarding dozens of phrases. I have internally debated the merits of "azure," "cobalt" and "indigo." I try out half a dozen ways to say something before I actually say it. I even do this to a lesser degree in everyday conversation. Just because I hadn't committed anything to paper didn't mean that I hadn't given it any thought or expended any effort. I finally wrote it down just so I could have a "cheat sheet" for the competition. I know that most people need rough drafts on paper. My rough drafts are virtually always internal. She wasn't sure whether I was serious or rationalizing. I was very serious.

My husband, God love him, is not a language lover. He works best with machinery. Machinery makes sense to him. Words are nebulous, interchangeable, inefficient. Give him an electrical circuit any day. In this, we are totally incompatible.

Where Were You?

Shortly after my oldest child started high school, I was driving her to her early morning class. There's a 6:45 religion class available just off campus for members of our church. Despite the early hour, she was excited about the chance to go.

When we were about a block and a half away from the church, something odd came on the news. Normally, at that hour, it's traffic news and humor items. Unexpectedly, the dj reported a plane crash in Washington DC. "A plane has crashed into the side of the Pentagon," the voice said. "There is a fire. Reports are sketchy, but we'll bring you updates as we receive them." He didn't sound too upset or concerned. He said something vague about another crash in New York, promising, "We'll share details as we get them."

"Poor pilot," I thought. I was picturing a little private plane, flown by an amateur who became disoriented and crashed.

The date was September 11, 2001.

I dropped my daughter off and started the 5 to 10 minute drive home. The news report repeated one more time before I got there. They had no new information, but sounded a bit more worried this time. I hoped no one had been seriously hurt, knowing that the pilot probably was.

With 3 children in 3 different schools, and a preschooler still at home, I had a routine. About the time I returned from dropping off my oldest, my 8^th grader would get up and eat. As she was getting ready to go, my first grader and my two year old would get up. We'd all drive Big Sister to school, then return to finish eating and get my 6 year old ready. After we dropped him off, my youngest would watch TV while I showered and got dressed. (Yes, I drove the big kids while in my jammies.) The TV was always off until the big kids were at school – otherwise, they'd never get ready. I called my husband every day after the last school drop off; unless there was an emergency, I wouldn't be on the phone during our carefully choreographed morning.

I was surprised when the phone rang, just after I got home. It was my husband, sounding terse and cryptic. "Turn on the TV," he said.

"Why?"

"Just turn it on."

I hate mysteriousness. "Is this about the plane that crashed into the Pentagon? I heard already."

"Yes and no. Just turn on the TV."

"What channel?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll call you back."

I don't remember what channel I turned on; I don't remember if it was satellite or network. I remember the image of the smoking New York skyscraper, and the baffled voice of the announcer.

Two plane crashes? In one day? What were the odds? I was still thinking of small, private planes; I was still imagining malfunctions. Those poor pilots, I thought. Words started to penetrate my brain, words like "airliner" and "sabotage" and "hijack."

Hijacked planes? I imagined displaced passengers and crew being shooed off the planes before the hijackers took it from the airport. Was the one in Washington DC hijacked? Who would do such a thing? Where had they taken the planes from?

I left the room to make sure my second oldest was up and getting ready. The constant replays made things seem as if they were happening in front of me, even when they weren't. It was now about 10 a.m. on the east coast. As I came back to the family room, the announcer was saying something like, "I can't believe it! I just can't believe it!" Both towers of the World Trade Center were now on fire. "Let's see that from a different angle," the newscaster said. The replay began, and a plane came into view, a huge jetliner. It was flying low, below the roof of the towers. It disappeared behind the building, and just as I expected to see it emerge on the other side, a ball of flame erupted from the tower. They showed the replay over and over, and each time I felt just a second too long had passed, we'd see the plane at any moment, and the fireball burst through. Every now and then, they'd say, "We have footage taken from (another vantage point)," and that film would play.

That third plane changed everything. I couldn't hang on to the idea of separate accidents. It was deliberate. Someone meant to do this. Why?

I could not imagine that the plane was full, that any of them contained more than one or two people. I was sure that, at any moment, the news would cut to befuddled passengers on a tarmac saying, "They just forced us out. I don't know what they wanted." The planes simply had to be empty. The buildings, God help us, had people in them, but surely not the planes…

My 13 year old poked her head out into the family room, wondering why I had the TV on – it flew in the face of our routine. I made sure she ate and brushed her teeth – she's not big on breakfast, but I always insisted – and then called her out to the TV. "They'll be talking about this at school today; you'll need to know what happened."

Watching the first tower fall was shocking. How was it even possible that it could collapse? By the time the second tower fell, I couldn't process any further horror. It was overload.

I turned off the TV before my younger kids could see the images of smoke, destruction, papers and dust raining on Manhattan. I told my 6 year old what had happened in the simplest terms. He wanted to know how many people were hurt, and I told him that nobody knew yet, but we'd find out later.

News that a fourth plane had gone down in Pennsylvania seemed both inevitable and terrifying. All over the nation, planes were grounded; we wondered how many more would bring chaos and death.

I kept the television off, or safely on Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer, when my 2 year old was awake. When she napped, I watched more TV. I now knew that the planes had been full, all of them, and I tried to imagine a reality in which such things happened. I simply could not wrap my head around a mindset that would believe this was OK. I cried. I mourned. I heard the name of Osama Bin Laden for the first time. I learned that the plane in Pennsylvania had been kept from hitting its target by passengers. (They are still some of my heroes today.)

My children barely remember, if they remember at all, the world before planes were used as weapons, before it became commonplace to assume that terrorists can and will take hundreds of lives at once – not in a war zone, but in a country at peace, on an ordinary morning, because they disagree with our religion and our government.

I still remember keenly staring at the screen and thinking, "They have to be empty… don't they?"

Glass and Steel

I have no appreciation for modern architecture. I know this about myself. I do not like sleek, modern or dramatic anything, really. What's the point of making a building that looks like a cube balanced on one corner? The fact that you can? The fact that it's different from everything around it? I am unimpressed.

My husband, of course, values those two attributes highly. Looking at houses together is a comedy routine. He'll look at a house and wrinkle his nose in distaste. "It's so boxy and square," he'll say.

"What's it supposed to look like? A butterfly? A car?" Complaining that a house is too boxy is like complaining that shirts are human shaped. Of course it's boxy. It's a big box with windows and doors. That's what it's supposed to be. Ask virtually any elementary school child in America to draw a house, and they'll draw the same thing – a box with a triangular roof, a door, and two windows.

Dan will swoon over the balanced cube. "Do you know how hard it is to engineer that?" he'll marvel. I am not bored easily, but I am bored by trying to imagine how to build otherworldly shapes. Just make a conventional shape and be done with it, already.

Dan loves geodesic domes. He's often said that he'd love to live in one. I'm left wondering where, exactly, I'd hang anything on the walls. Where would I put the furniture, cowering in the center of the rooms? And what about windows? He once told me that if you used the right translucent material, you wouldn't need windows. It would actually be brighter than regular houses with windows. Well, OK, but light is only half of why I want windows.

Recently we got a magazine with a cover story on a new bridge. It looks like, I don't know, maybe a wing – the driving surface is fairly conventional (after all, you have to drive over it,) but the upper portion of the bridge is an elongated triangle, high and soaring at one end and tapering to nothing at the other. The article urged readers to go see the bridge, and make sure they saw it at night, too, when it would be lit. I was just thinking, "Why would anyone travel anyplace to see a triangular bridge?" when Dan saw the article. "Wow, that looks pretty cool," he said. "I'd like to see that." How did we manage to marry each other? I'm so glad most of our home owning decisions are based on finances.

When I was 19, my college fiction writing class received an assignment: describe something from the point of view of two different characters. Each should have an opinion very different from the other. It was an easy assignment for me.

You're always told, "Write what you know." I chose to center the assignment on the building I'd worked in for years, a monolith downtown. My first job was as a runner in the law firm my mother worked for. It was on first the 11th, then the 15th, floor of a bank and office building. The bank took up the lower floors, and various offices – many of them law offices – took up the rest. The building was a towering glass and steel edifice that looked black from the window tinting. It was modern and impressive, and I never really liked it.

One of my characters was a young man, a newlywed. He saw in the tall, shiny black building a symbol of progress, hope and strength. Everything that was right and good and wonderful about his future was embodied in that building. The other character was an elderly man, a veteran. He saw it as a sterile, impersonal, uncaring symbol of a society that was the same. This man knew that progress leaves people behind, that the bottom line is always money and not human beings. I got an "A".

You tend to identify most with the characters whose experiences mirror your own. I was young, I was engaged; on paper, my first character should have been me. Instead, I was the old man; wrinkled, walking with a cane, invisible to passersby, memories of a long ago battlefield unconsciously coloring his world. I wrote both of them well, but the old man was the one who held my opinions.

I'm at a loss to explain why so many museums are so frightfully modern, so Buck Rogers. I love museums, but I love the inside. I tend to think the outside should be old, weathered, stone, that they should show some age, for goodness sake. The most beautiful museum exterior I've ever seen is the Museum of Man in San Diego's Balboa Park. I absolutely swooned over the darned thing. Back in the days when photos took film, and you had to make it count every time you pushed the shutter button, I probably shot an entire roll of film on just the dome. There must be some reason things speak to a person's soul, but whatever the formula, that did it for me.

There's always the shorter, less poetic opinion. One of my sisters once watched me decorating my house or yard – I don't remember which, or what I was using. I just remember her chrome and glass sensibilities being offended as she queried, "What is it with you and old, ratty things?"