MR. KORFMAN PLANTS A SEED

    

1960

     Without consulting Dad or Joe Stephenson, I decided to take winter ball off, but Dad was more disgusted with my grades in school than not playing baseball, wanting me to go to college like he did. My grades sunk to below C as I shirked my studies. I wanted no part of school. My only meager talent seemed to be in English, where my teacher, Mr. Robert Korfman, a square fuddy-duddy in vested suits and bow ties, exercised no-nonsense control over his class while verbalizing a passion for literature that was not to be compromised. He shocked me by reading one of my compositions of fans at a ball game to the class. Students roared with laughter and hung on every word, unlike with other readings, where they yawned and dawdled. Girls, and especially a popular beauty named Dawn Meadows, who’d previously cringed at the sight of me as I slouched in the back, actually turned to smile at me, like I was an actual human instead of a deadly disease.

     Mr. Korfman, a Kansan, had me stay after class and looked me in the eye and chastised me gently for being so “tunneled into baseball at the exclusion of everything else,” an anti-intellectual charade he found “childish and mindless.” Wow!

     “Sit down, Dell Franklin.” I complied, clutching my ragged notebook. “You, my fine-feathered friend, are NOT just a jock. You’re a writer, whether you like it or not. You possess all the sensibilities and instincts of a writer, even if you are so confined in your development you can only write about buffoons sitting in the bleachers at ball games. You have a rare gift. Don’t waste it being a one-dimensional person. The fact that you’re a terrible student should not matter if you pursue a passion for reading and writing. You might even surprise yourself some day. Sometimes the most errant kids, the worst students, the most mixed up souls, go on to do great things in the arts.”

     Despite myself, I was flattered. “So what should I do, Mr. Korfman?”

     “There’s a creative writing class run by Mrs. Rogers. I can recommend you and you can pay her a visit. The class has been going on for a couple months, and some of the students are skilled and been writing seriously since they were young. But none of them have what you have…” He smacked his gut. “I see a seed growing there. Water it. And when you report to Mrs. Rogers, be sure to make an effort to be humble. Tell her you want to write. I’ll put in a good word for you. I’m counting on you now.”

     I was inspired by Mr. Korfman. I did like writing. It went hand-in-hand with my propensity to entertain, embellish, fabricate, relate stories from what I’d observed on a daily basis, like Dad, who was a riotous story teller at Hot Stove meetings. Often I amused Sturrock and Shaw with tales of the shoemakers at the store and off-beat characters I’d seen in Compton.

     When I reported to Mrs. Rogers, a heavy woman who wore baggy dresses, she immediately informed me it was too late to enter her hand-picked class of budding prodigies who worked on the school paper, the yearbook, were members of the poetry club, and entered fiction contests.

     “What have you written so far, Mr. Franklin?”

     I explained my baseball piece written for Mr. Korfman. She sighed, rolled her eyes. “There’s simply too much work to make up.”

     “Ma’am, how many assignments would I have to make up?”

     “Several essays and two short stories.”

     “I’ll do them all tonight. I’m a fast worker. I’ve got ideas.”

     “I’ll have to talk to Mr. Korfman.” She dismissed me.

     Next day, Mr. Korfman informed me Mrs. Rogers wanted no part of me in her class. He was smiling at me. “She finds you exceedingly arrogant and feels you’ll be disruptive. So you see, Dell, perhaps you will learn a lesson. You should have said you’d TRY and write the assignments you were behind on in a few days or a week, and you wished to write about subjects other than baseball, instead of bowling her over with your confidence.”

     “I was going to write about a bunch of shoemakers, sir. With all due respect for one of your fellow teachers, Mrs. Rogers is a pompous snob.”

     He erupted into laughter. “Well, whatever your views on that subject, it would have given you the opportunity to write.” He placed the tip of his pencil against his chin, scrutinizing me severely, yet with a glint of humor in his eyes. “You could have LEARNED something. It would have been a good experience to get thrown into a different mix. Now I can only implore you to write on your own, and to read voraciously. Read the American masters first—Twain, Steinbeck, Hemingway. Read everything you can get your hands on. I can recommend other writers as you grow. Good literature will train you to think and force you to feel, and you will become more in touch with your emotions and intellect, and better able to cope with what life throws at you. I’m counting on you to read and write, young man.”

     “I promise I will, sir. And thank you.”       

(Next Sunday installment: “Angus Takes Charge of Me.)