Importance of Chapter 7

I have mentioned several times that in High School I was hopeless in English classes.  Luckily, I only had to take two English classes here in America or I would probably still be in High School!

I remember in 10th grade that I was in this classical reading class with a teacher whom worshiped Joseph Conrad.  Now I might not be much in English, but I did grow up on a dairy and so had a tremendous familiarity with what cows produced and leave on the ground.  Interestingly, exactly the same product Joseph Conrad was capable of producing.  Lord how I hated that class!

A book a week, a paper a week, a lie a week.

When I first came to America, a new friend took me to a stand up comedian performance his church was doing in South Carolina.  So, I got to see an American church, observe whom the "Christian" kids were in the community and believe it or not, I actually learned something.

The guy talked about how horrible his high school years were and how the only way he could get past literature class was to bluff his way through the essays.  How did he do it?  Well, he would write about the importance of chapter 7 to the storyline of the book!  The crowd roared with laughter ...

So, there I am in literature, forced to choke down a Joseph Conrad book a week, write an essay a week about how wonderful this cow-patty is, and still retain some self respect!  And every week I wrote on the importance of chapter 7!  I would read the first chapter, the last chapter and then tie both together with chapter 7!

Unfortunately, that approach will only work for so long and by the end of the class we had to write a critical essay on Lord Jim - the worse of the worst of Conrad's books!  How do you produce a 12 page paper on the worse book ever written, by an English hack, and then try to save your own self respect?!?!?!?

So, I wrote the entire review in the manner of Mad Magazine, pictures and everything.

Not only did I get an 'A' in the class, but she sent a copy to Mad Magazine and I won an interview with them.  In the end, they did not hire me - commenting "that my drug levels were obviously too low".  I had no idea what that meant and they told me, "that was exactly the problem" - but they loved my work.

So, here I am this week reading random books and here is this one called, "I Prayed for Patience and Other Horror Stories", by Chuck Snyder.  Cute book, fun book, a good story of a man finding God and learning how to live life for Christ.  And then there it is, he is talking about his giving talks to youth groups around the country and the Importance of Chapter 7!

All of these decades later, I can now see whom he was and read now as a Christian his testimony and marvel at how one of his tongue in cheek remarks in 1969 - stuck with me and actually saved me in High School!

No idea if the man is still even alive but if he is, thank you, you saved this young German in English classes he never could have otherwise passed ...

As for Miss Two-Ton-Iron-Bladder, she went on to found what was to become Weight Watchers, lose about 500 pounds and become fabulously wealthy before dieing of a heart-attack!  Yeah, shock of losing so much weight I guess.  Or, she might have actually read Lord Jim one last time and choked on it .....