The Spelling Bee

I contend the word "geneology" is misspelled.

No, all your smarty-pants readers out there, that's not a typo in the opening sentence. I mean, the way that everyone says it is correctly spelled, g-e-n-e-a-l-o-g-y, cannot be correct. It simply cannot be. I mean, can you name for me one other "-ology" that is spelled "-alogy" ... can you??? (And by the way if you can I don't want to hear about it.)

OK, perhaps I still have issues from the 1967 Louisiana state spelling bee. The contest was for Catholic elementary school students, and in March of that year, about to finish 7th grade, I made it all the way to the finals in Alexandria. Always a good speller (thank you Giffy Marshall), I really had buckled down and studied those giant spelling bee memorization books. But for some reason, the word "genealogy" never came up. Or if it did, I conveniently forgot about it.

On the day of my big spelling debacle, I easily breezed through a few rounds of what could only be considered warm-up words. The words were so easy I can't even remember them.

But in the middle rounds things got a little tougher.

And when it was my turn, and I confidently spelled the word in the way that I contend to this day it ought to be spelled, g-e-n-e-o-l-o-g-y, and that gosh-darn nun with her chubby little white-framed face in her sorry black habit rang her stupid little nun bell and said to me in her smarmy, know-it-all nun voice, "No, sorry!" I seriously considered lunging for her skinny berobed throat right then.

Bless me father for I have sinned. Luckily, I was too stunned to act upon my m-a-l-e-v-o-l-e-n-t thought, and so I s-l-u-n-k (hmmm, is that correct ?) back to my chair, to watch the remainder of the contest with the rest of the l-o-s-e-r-s.

Some kid named Gremillion, from Opelousas or someplace like that, who wore high-waisted flood pants with white socks (wait, that's probably what I was wearing too), won the Louisiana State Catholic Spelling Bee that day. I don't remember the word he spelled to win. Truthfully, there was no way I would have kept up with him and the other real whiz-kids in the final rounds.

But I knew a ton of the words that came after the one they told me I got wrong. Which it wasn't.

Oh, and one more thing. There is no Jack Marshall photograph of me in that spelling bee. Throughout the first 22+ years of my life, I rarely can remember an important moment when my father was not there with his camera to record forever those events – every basketball, baseball and football game, every tennis match, every graduation, dance, first communion, confirmation, and first and last days of school. In the process, Dad demonstrated his love in the most important way possible, by being there.

For some reason though, on this day, although he was there and no doubt wishing me luck, the only pictures I can find on the contact sheet of the spelling bee are ones like this one (below) of the aforementioned young Mr. Gremillion and the nun, rest her soul, for whom I still harbor malicious intent. Perhaps even Jack Marshall knew the dumb wrong way to spell g-e-n-e-a-l-o-g-y and hoped that not taking my picture on such a tragic day would help purge the event from my memory. Not a chance.

I do, however, have a picture of a Marshall child performing in the state spelling bee (top of post). That would be from the following year, when my sister Mary, The Princess in a family of boys (see Forever Mary, September 23, 2009) also was a contender in the big event.

Just as with me, Mary today told me that all these years later, she too remembers the word she misspelled to be eliminated from the competition. "Inimitable," she said without hesitation when I asked her on the phone a few minutes ago.

C'mon Mary. That should have been a no-brainer. Spelled just like it sounds. How could you possible miss "inimitable" anyway?

I wasn't there that day so I can't tell you exactly how it went down for Mary. There is a priest in the picture, and it looks like he's calling out the words. But I'm guessing that somewhere in that gym was that same dang nun, and she probably dinged Mary off the floor too. But at least Jack Marshall took her picture!

Nowadays, I watch the big Scripps National Spelling Bee on television each year and I marvel at those kids. I mean, really, we weren't even in the same league as they are today. Most if not all of the "championship words" that today's contestants spell correctly are words I've never even heard.

But each year, I watch, and wait, on the off chance that some poor, unsuspecting kid from some little town will walk up to the microphone on national television and get the word "gene*logy."

I'm still waiting. And if he or she happens to spell it g-e-n-e-o-l-o-g-y, I most certainly will feel vindicated.

–Tom Marshall, New York City