FOUR WORDS THAT CHANGED A LIFE
from CHICAGO TRIBUNE
BOB GREENE
'Are you too stupid to do anything right?' These words- said by a woman to a little boy who was evidently her son- were spoken because he had walked away from her. And they were said at a volume high enough that all strangers in the vicinity could hear. Chastised, the boy returned quietly to the woman's side, his eyes downcast.
Not a big moment, perhaps. Yet small moments sometimes last a very long time. And a few words-though they mean little at the time to the people who say them- can have enormous power. "Are you too stupid to do anything right?" Words like that can echo.
I recently heard a story from a man named Malcom Dalkoff. He's 48; for the last 24 years he has been a professional writer, mostly in advertising. Here is what he told me:
As a boy in Rock Island, Ill., Dalkoff was terribly insecure and shy. He had few friends and no self-confidence. Then one day in October 1965, his high-school teacher, Ruth Brauch, gave the class an assignment. The students had been reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Now they were to write their own chapter that would follow the last chapter of the novel.
Dalkoff wrote his chapter and turned it in. Today he cannot recall anything special about the chapter he wrote, or what grade Mrs. Brauch gave him. What he does remember-what he will never forget- are the four words Mrs. Brauch wrote in the margin of the paper: "This is good writing".
Four words. They changed his life.
"Until I read those words, I had no idea I was or what I was going to be", he said. "After reading her note, I went home and wrote a short story, something I had always dreamed of doing but never believed I could do".
Over the rest of that year in school, he wrote many short stories and always brought them to school for Mrs. Brauch to evaluate. She was encouraging, tough and honest. "She was just what I needed", Dalkoff said.
He was named co-editor of his high-school newspaper. His confidence grew; his horizons broadened; he started off on a successful, fulfilling life. Dalkoff is convince that none of this would have happened had that woman not written those four words in the margin of his paper.
For his 30th high-school reunion, Dalkoff went back and visited Mrs. Brauch, who had retired. He told her what her four words had done for him. He told her that because she had given him the confidence to be a writer, he had been able to pass that confidence on to the woman who would be his wife, who became a writer herself. He told Mrs. Brauch that a young woman in his office, who was working in the evenings toward a high-school-equivalency diploma, had come to him for advice and assistance. She respected him beacuse he was a writer-that is why she turned to him.
Mrs. Brauch was specially moved by the story of helping the young woman. "At that moment I think we both realized that Mrs. Brauch had cast an incredibly long shadow", he said.
"Are you too stupid to do anything right?"
"This is good writing"
So few words. They can changed everything.
