Ruminations on the written word
by Rob ParsonsTorrents
of rain upon my Haiku rooftop woke me from dreamland. The volume of
water overflowed the gutters, sending a mini-waterfall onto the porch
stairs, so forceful it power-washed the paint right off. After five
minutes, the downpour subsided.
Thus began my day of writing the
weekly column that has been a regular routine and central focus over
the past three years. The Rob Report has been equally a privilege—the
opportunity to share valuable information while advocating positive
change—and a challenge. If only my word count quota could stream forth
as vigorously as the morning rain shower.
Back in eighth grade
English class at Cherokee Junior High School, Mrs. Wenger sought to
stimulate our writing by assigning a weekly essay, a task that elicited
groans from my classmates. The topics were to be of our own choice,
with the caveat that the first paper was to cover "plagiarism." To
those of us who went scrambling to the dictionary or encyclopedia for a
definition, the intent was obvious: Alerting us that original material
was greatly preferred, not a report copying verbatim or rehashing
someone else's work.
I dutifully complied with the weekly chore,
and even recall praise from our no-nonsense instructor—who was rumored
to have once served as an Army drill sergeant—on a particular story.
Mrs. Wenger lauded an essay I wrote about a glass showcase of curios
that our family nicknamed, "The Museum." The three-shelved yellow
cabinet contained items as diverse as Alaskan engraved walrus tusks, an
autographed Milwaukee Braves baseball, Hopi kachina dolls and a
rattlesnake rattle.
The take-home message that accompanied the
"A" on the paper was to personalize a story, to write about things you
know. Ever since, I have appreciated the yarn-spinning component in the
musings of local writers Tom Stevens ("Shave Ice") and Paul Wood, who
authored "Four Corners Five Wheels" in the now defunct Haleakala Times.
Wood was my first editor, as well as my instructor at MCC
through the VITEC program. Stevens remains the unequaled superstar of
similes and metaphors, with a memory for details sharper than a
Thanksgiving carving knife. Both are masters of their craft, in a vast
Pacific gyre of floating plasticized prose.
Since the Johannes
Gutenburg press revolutionized the printed word in the mid-15th
century, the industrial revolution and new technology have continued to
push the boundaries of literature, journalism, data-sharing and instant
access to information. The very process of finding the date for the
German goldsmith's printing press (1440), the grade-school olfactory
memory-eliciting mimeograph (1876) or laser printer (1969) is
accomplished with a click or two from a home computer or handheld
iPhone.
Wikipedia has supplanted what once required a trip to
the 20-volume red and blue-covered World Book Encyclopedia on our
family bookshelf.
At least my family instilled an appreciation
for knowledge and learning, as well as reading and writing. Both my
parents and elementary school teachers took time to read books aloud,
and we also listened to the "Chapter a Day" program on Public Radio.
Mom and Dad read classics such as The Wind in the Willows, The Phantom
Tollbooth, and E.B. White's Charlottes's Web and Stuart Little. I
remember my third grade teacher Mrs. Huddlestone reading us the
original Pinocchio, quite different than the popular Disney cartoon
version.
We have since skyrocketed into a Jetsons-esque world of
gadgets, and books, magazines and newspapers simply don't have the
bling or flash of their electronic counterparts. A weekend trip to the
Maui Swap Meet reminded me how pervasive the personal media player
earplugs are to a certain 'tween-to-teen age group, providing a buffer
to the outside world.
In our fast-paced digital age, reading
has become a luxury, though some commuters may opt for books on tape
while driving. Text messages and e-mail have given birth to a brave new
world of abbreviations and misspellings. But even texters may be
hitting the saturation point. As a friend recently noted, "LOL used to
mean 'laugh out loud.' Now it's more like, 'I don't have anything else
to say.'"
Then there are those who unfortunately have too much
to say. Blogs and online comment forums have opened up the discussion
and facilitated a new kind of debate—one that frequently devolves into
factually void protestations and name-calling rather than insightful
discourse. The noteworthy truth about opinions is that they don't
require a person to actually know anything to have one. At least, that
was the viewpoint shared by tennis star Andre Agassi.
Everything,
of course, is debatable, though some might argue that. My morning
meteorological observations might be deemed overblown by a Kauai
resident of Hanalei Valley who endured 19 inches of rain over a 24-hour
period last week.
My recent Rob Report opinion that money spent
on the LCROSS lunar mission could be better prioritized on
down-to-Earth social needs stirred up a tempest of online criticism
from NASA fans and educators, including one who penned a book about a
boy who lives in a lunar space colony. (Footnote: Studies from LCROSS
data seen to indicate there is evidence of water, or at least
carbon-based materials, on the moon. Now, can we find adequate clean
water for all our needs here on Earth?)
It is generally my hope
that my weekly articles may 'provoke' the reader in the purest
etymological sense: to call forth or excite one's interests and ideas.
Ideally, good writing can accomplish that with a tickle or a nudge,
rather than a poke from a sharp stick.
In my youth, I was a
voracious reader, the kind who snuck a flashlight under my covers at
night to read after bedtime. Through college and beyond, I was always
in search of a good book. I remember being amazed at Ken Kesey's
passage in Sometimes a Great Notion, when the family dog is the
narrator and slips into a loopy reverie while the poison of a snakebite
courses through his bloodstream.
I am still awed by the
Technicolor literary palette of Tom Robbins's novels, and his uncanny
ability to paint multi-hued fantastic epics with the same words
available to the rest of us. Such extraordinary writing serves not just
to entertain, but also to inspire one to reach for higher, riper, more
succulent fruit in the Tree of Knowledge.
My wife Heather is now
the ravenous reader in the family, leaning often toward historical
fiction novels. I still read daily, though I'm generally limited to
periodicals, online research and e-mailed articles. Like so many
others, I often allow smaller sound bites to take the place of more
in-depth dissertations. Still, I'm grateful for a speed-reading course
taken during December of my freshman year in college.
Likewise,
I have great respect for a small gift from my Dad some year's back: a
copy of Strunk & White's writer's handbook, The Elements of Style.
That diminutive guide, which turned 50 this year, serves as a frequent
reference, occupying a place of esteem beside my Thesaurus. (Dad, a
physician who never quite understood the word "retired," has authored
two books of his own since closing his private practice.)
One of
Strunk and White's most poignant maxims asks that the writer "omit
needless words." As I've already over-indulged both you, the reader,
and myself, I'll leave that duty to my trusted editor.