I Guess I Liked “Sam”

Unfortunately, I still don’t have those Official English Paper files from middle school, jr. high, and high school. I will one of these days, though, and I’ll share something from them when I do. In the meantime, how ’bout a couple writing samples from my baby book, which, for some reason, I do happen to have?

I was about five-years-old, maybe six, when I wrote these. As you can tell, I had great concern for both the animal kingdom and the Kingdom.

And lots of confusion about apostrophes, commas, and possessives. (But check out that semi-colon use, eh?)

I don’t think this first one is supposed to be a poem. My blue-crayon handwriting just took up a bunch of space per line. (I’ve preserved spelling, punctuation, and line-breaks.)

“Sam The dog”

to Dad

Sam is a dog.
Johny is his,s oner.
Johny play,s with
sam. and Sam
play,s with Johny.
Sam loves
Johny. and Johny
Loves sam.
Sam like,s cats; sam does
not clime fenses. Sam
is a boy dog. Sam
likes pepple too.

Later in the year, I figured out how to spell “fence” and the difference between an apostrophe and a comma. Apparently, I was also learning about using commas with conjunctions. I hope some instruction on pronouns and antecedents followed shortly.

(FYI, this story also included pencil illustrations of Tom, Sam, and the cross on a hill with flowers. There’s also an “I *heart* You” enclosed in a rectangle at the bottom of the page, though the recipient is unclear. Mom taped it to the back cover of my baby book, but, if you look closely, you can see some math work, involving dollar signs, on the other side of the paper.)

“Tom’s Cat”

Tom had a cat. His name was Sam. Sam was a good cat, but one day Tom fowned that he was on the fence and was chaseing a cat up a tree! Sam was a bad cat that day. But, God and Jesus helped him to be better because he died for us that we mite be saved, and that’s just what he did. And, that is how he got saved. And that was that!

As a bonus, here’s a poem (of mine) from 2003 that I’m not particularly fond of, but I’ll share it anyway, because, thematically, it fits well in this post and eliminates any doubts about the authorship of the earlier pieces. (Relax. It’s just a poem, not a theological statement.)

Searching for Maverick at Midnight

The night we left town for
a restaurant where no one
we knew could find us,
my sister called to say
Maverick was missing.

You tried to convince me
he was alive, we wouldn’t
stumble over his body,
the tips of his fur lifting
and falling with the wind
of passing cars. You said
wait until morning, we’d
get a call from the shelter.

Still, you gave up the dinner
we’d traveled three hours for,
headed back to Abilene.

We circled the neighborhood
with the windows down,
slower at my command,
the flashlight illuminating alleys
the moon couldn’t touch.
You didn’t complain about
the cold or ask me to stop
whispering his name, remind me
dogs aren’t worth crying over.

You didn’t laugh when I
suggested prayer, reverting back
to eight years old. You didn’t
scold me for believing dogs
have souls, and even if they don’t,
a God as big as ours could save
the soulless if he wanted,
could whisper one word
and raise a dog from the dead,
make a hole in the dark sky
with the slightest gust of wind,
let light shine right on Maverick.

You just smiled at me for loving
dogs as much as people and
pulled your coat tighter, aimed
the headlights down another road.