Tips and Tidbits for Writers

The Golden Girls

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When I was growing up in Missouri, I learned about the location of the different states from the giant map on the wall behind the teacher’s desk. Alaska and Hawaii were positioned side by side at the bottom left-hand side of the map. For years, I thought the two states were in close proximity to one another. When my father came home from work one day and announced that we might be traveling to Alaska I was excited. I had always wanted to go to Hawaii and thought it would be a short trip to there from Alaska. What did I know? I was seven and thus began my struggle to read any map.

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I think about that that map a lot whenever I go into schools to talk about the books I’ve written about women of the American frontier. The children I usually give talks to range in age from nine to fourteen, and they are always eager to hear about the history of the West. During my talk, I ask students if they can give me a few names of women they know of from the Wild West days. At least one student in every class where I give a presentation responds, “The Golden Girls.” I was confused at first and asked, “Are you talking about the television show The Golden Girls?” Indeed, they were. They even knew the show’s theme song and on a couple of occasions sang it for me. I expected the kids to shout out the names of Calamity Jane or Annie Oakley. I was as taken aback by the fact that children thought Bea Arthur and Betty White were women who helped settled the West as my second-grade teacher was when I suggested Eskimos swim to Hawaii to escape living in igloos.

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Television shows like Jeopardy seem to renew viewers thirst for knowledge. It’s kind of unfortunate though that Ken Jennings turns out to be the one who leads us to drink from the fountain of wisdom, rather than some of the incredible teachers in this country. I think we have a problem when the guards we hire at schools are making more than the teachers we pay to educate our kids.

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I had several wonderful teachers. Oh sure, I can’t read a map, I must have missed that class. But I have a love of the West and that was because of Buena High School history teacher Virginia Upton. She was built like a Russian swimmer. Her glasses were on a chain, her sweater was on a chain…. Now why she always wore a sweater in southern Arizona I do not know, but she was a wonder. Her Xeroxed handouts were always missing the top or bottom third of the page, and I don’t think she’d altered her lesson plans since Huey Long was shot, but she was great at giving lectures about the history of the country.

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The influence of a good teacher extends far beyond the classroom.

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-Chris Enss, WRMA Executive Director