In 500 Words or Less…

    I was recently asked how and why I started to write and I will admit that it did not come easily.  And why did I select the title of 500 Words or Less, especially since most of my work extends well beyond the five-hundred-word limit.

    The  number 500 echoes in my mind from the  many days and years in school, some sixty or more or years ago now. In the Dark Ages, as my grandchildren often refer to them, I did not truly understand why we were told the essays in English class could be no longer than five hundred words. Sometimes what I had to say was so important it would require more than five hundred words. But in keeping with the assignments and the teacher’s directions, we dutifully would sit there and count the number of words on the paper. And if we were over five hundred words, if we went over the mark, that was where we would have to stop, even if it meant stopping in the middle of a sentence.

    Truthfully, sometimes I thought my summer vacations, a topic we seem to write about endlessly year after year when returning to school in the Fall, was so exciting that it required more than five hundred words. And then there was David, who often  sat next to me  in class. He would write about his sister with her head hanging over the toilet for hours because of the flu.  Certainly that was worth more than 750 words, although she didn't think so.

   What would I do if I became president was another popular subject, especially in election years. The title alone contained eight words. Jason, the class comedian, always managed to fall well below the maximum   number of words for his essays on this topic. What would he write? His essays always consisted of just one word.” NOTHING.” By the way, he was recently elected to the state legislature a few years ago in New Jersey.

   Once I became a teacher. I understood why teachers often limited the length of the essays. One teacher, twenty-five students per class and six classes created an enormous amount of reading and correcting. And if we expected to get the assignments back to the students with a grade back during the semester, it was important to work within the limits.

   The sophomore year in high school was a turning point for many of us. Our English teacher’s  name was Mr. Furst told us that if we could not get our point across in five hundred words or less, it probably wasn't worth saying or writing. (We always ask him how his last name could be Furst.? He would explain it to us  while we spent time in detention after school for making fun of his name.) The one lesson I think most learned from his class was to be concise and get to the point. No rambling. We became believers. Even today, I often believe that sometimes the  less said the better, whether it be in a written document or a public speech.

   Although on occasion I stray from the lessons taught by Mr. First, I still make every attempt to limit the length and to improve the quality of the message. Using vocabulary, words,  that creates pictures in the mind can be very effective. Often the best pictures are not really pictures but are words we put together to tell the story.

   I have been writing  for many years now.  My attempt with my weekly columns over time has been to share a variety of topics and events, and maybe even help you recall some of your own memories and experiences. While my goal back 10^th grade  was to accomplish story telling  within the limit of five hundred words back in the days of English class, I have found over time that it is often much more difficult to limit the number of words, often because there is too much to say.

    Now, in case there are any questions, you will not see me sitting with paper and pencil counting each word on the page. The computer does that for me now. Life sometimes seems so much easier today. By the way…what’s a pencil?