Epps’ article for 06.02.06

English was not my best subject in high school. Neither was anything else, actually, unless you count Physical Education.

I played varsity football which resulted in an automatic A in P.E. which kept my cumulative grade average from dropping below 80, which, in those days was a low C, and not the B it is today.

It wasn’t as though I wasn’t intelligent enough to do the work but I had other interests including football, karate, youth groups, Mindy, Pam, Elaine, Nancy, and a few others over the years.

In fact, I made a C on the Moby Dick exam without ever having read the book. I did read the cartoon version published by Classics Illustrated, which is how I avoided a D or F. One of my English teachers took three or four of her most sorry students and isolated us in the far corner of her room. She dubbed the area “the evil corner.”

As I said, English was not my best subject. College came and with it English Composition 101. One of the early assignments was to submit an essay.

A week after submitting the essay, the instructor caught me after class and said, “I’d like to see you in my office.”

“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good,” I thought. Meekly, I followed him to his office where he took his place behind his desk.

“Have a seat,” he ordered. He picked up several sheets of paper, looked them over, then said, “I’ve read your essay, David.”

“Here it comes,” I silently said and braced myself.

“Have you ever thought about changing your major to creative writing?” he asked.

My heart sank, “So, it was that bad, huh?”

“Not at all,” he said as he slid the papers across the desk to me. At the top in bright red ink was the grade: A+. I checked the name to make certain it was mine as he continued, “You really have a gift for telling stories. I think you should seriously consider changing your major to creative writing or journalism. You’d be good at it.”

I didn’t change my major but a few years later, remembering his words, I wrote an article and submitted it to a magazine. It was called “The Paper Tissue Flower,” and told the story of a gift I gave to my mother when I was 8 years old. She was suffering in the hospital from a serious condition and, in those days, children couldn’t get into hospital rooms. I made her a flower out of tissue paper and a bobby pin, which she kept in the family Bible until her dying day many decades later.

The story was published! I took the magazine to my folk’s house and showed the article to my father. As he neared the end of the story, he did something that I had never seen him do before. He cried.

My father never cried. But, in that moment, he cried, embarrassing him and causing him to hide his face in a handkerchief.

“Maybe I can write,” I thought. I submitted another article to the same magazine and it, too, was published.

I submitted four articles over the next few months and they were all rejected!

No matter, I knew that I could tell a story and put it on paper and so kept writing and submitting. Since them, I’ve had articles published in about 20 magazines and journals, on dozens of Web sites, and in numerous newspapers.

In 1986, I even won a Georgia Press Association award for the best article in its category. I have served as a consultant to a company that published a booklet targeting a certain denomination, was a contributing editor for a handbook on evangelism, and once served as a contributing editor for a denominational magazine.

The influence that teachers and professors can have on a life is truly amazing. I entered college with a high school average that was four points above a D, but, inspired by people like my college English professor, I worked hard and managed to graduate from East Tennessee State University in 1975 with the designation of cum laude, or “with honors.”

Later, I would graduate from seminary magna cum laude, or “with high honors,” and the lowest grade I made in my doctoral program was a B-.

For nearly 10 years, I have served as an opinion columnist for The Citizen newspapers (somewhere around 500 articles) and a number of these have been picked up and published by other newspapers in the South Atlanta area.

All this because, in English Comp 101 at ETSU an English professor, whose name I cannot now remember, said to me that he believed that I had a “gift for telling stories.”

A few weeks ago, someone who regularly reads my column said, “You’re a terrific writer.”

“No,” I said. “I’m just a pretty good storyteller.”

It’s incredible how a few kind and encouraging words from a teacher, a coach, a pastor, a priest or other influential adults can, in just a few moments, change an entire life.

My life was changed by one young professor of English who took less than 10 minutes to uncover a talent I never knew I had. I thought it was time to tell the story.