I won my first writing award in second grade when I was seven years old for a fable that revealed how strawberries got their pits on the outside. To the best of my recollection, here’s the fable:

Once upon a time in Romania, there lived Mean Master Mole who grew acres and acres of strawberries; so many every season that he had to hire pack rats to pick them. Led by Peter Pack Rat, the rats dutifully picked the strawberries, de-pitted them and then placed the pitted berries in large baskets and the pits in separate piles. The pack rats were forbidden to eat even one strawberry.

After a while, boredom set in and the pack rats began to fuss and complain. So, Peter Pack Rat took a pit from one of the large piles of pits and spit it on the pack rat closest to him.

Soon the air was dotted with pits as the pack rats followed their leader and spit the pits. Their enthusiasm got the attention of Mean Master Mole who lumbered into his fields only to be hit in the nose by a pit spat by Peter Pack Rat. Enraged, Mean Master Mole scattered all the pit piles throughout his strawberry fields. And that is now strawberries got their pits on the outside. The moral of the fable? DON’T SPIT THE PIT.

I know, I know — sheer poetry. I don’t remember if I won a ribbon, a certificate, or a strawberry.

Six years later, when I was in 8th grade and 13 years old, I won another writing award for a story I wrote to fulfill a science class assignment. The assignment was to write an essay or story about how bacteria pervades all of life.

Entitled, “Super Bac!”, my story related how a bacilli colony feeding on a human stomach was nearly destroyed from an attack of the anti-biotic, streptomycin. [The following photos are from the original assignment.]

The colony was saved by one Billy Bacteria, a mild-mannered reporter for Bacterial Business, who after changing his clothes in a phone booth, was transformed into the bacterial hero, SUPER-BAC!

Because movie rights are still being optioned, I cannot reveal many more details about this story. What’s most important is that I won an award (a set of those triangle-shaped Chinese erasers with the wooden heads; I was hoping for a microscope) and my teacher wanted a copy. And yeah, that Grade is “A” followed by 8 pluses.

Three years later when I was high school junior and 16 years old, it finally occurred to me that words could transform me not only into a storyteller, but perhaps also a poet, a playwright, even a PHILOSOPHER, as proven by my succinct assessment of the world at that time:

Huh?! Yes, brother, I’m rolling my eyes, too. So what else did my writing reveal about me and the world in the turbulent Sixties? Stay tuned for “Can You Hear It, Brother? — Part TWO.