Class? --

This writing thing has become something I rather enjoy – it’s not an obsession thing yet, but what the heck it’s replaced a lot of T.V. watching. Now don’t worry I still waste plenty of time doing that. I’m the first to admit that my stories have much to be desired and need some help – but where does an old dog go to learn new tricks? My family is already sick of my constant dissertations and asking for their opinions. Thus the reason I’m contemplating taking a class, I’ve been told many times that I need professional help, I just don’t think they meant this type. Now I don’t care about verbs – nouns – adjectives, I don’t even know the difference anymore. I guess if it makes sense and sounds good that’s all that matters. As I researched my options it came down to three: 1^st – There’s the Community Continuing Education classes. The local public school district gives these, but there seem to be only two choices – English as a second language, I have a hard time with it being my first language – and what looks like a basic class to help people to pass their GED. Now there’s nothing wrong with these two classes but they don’t meet the itch I’m seeking to scratch. But that Dutch Oven Cooking class looks pretty cool – maybe if I don’t win the Pulitzer Prize for writing, do they have one for cooking? 2^nd – There’s a local technical school, now they do have some English classes, but tech school aren’t designed to inspirer literary ignoramuses – part of one class was writing techniques, that seems like they would make me diagram a sentence, that’s an old trick that I just forgot a long time ago. Then I tried the local university; they have oodles of different options – basics, advanced, composition, foreign literature and then course number 3440 - non-fiction creative writing. In the explanation it even said that it would take your writings too a publishable finish. This is exactly what I’m looking for. It’s not a long class, 1-½ hours twice a week – or in university lingo, three credit hours. Now I just had to figure out how to register – apparently you can take classes for credit or not for credit. Now because I don’t want to take all the other classes why would I take it for credit? – I just want to learn how to finish the final masterpiece. Now the cost - $930, what! For one class? I guess the more credits you take the less it is per hour – but $930 is worth more than the old family van I still drive to work. Now my daughter works for the admissions office, so she decided to see if there was some sort of discount. There was, but only under two conditions; 1^st –you’re an employee of the university and then you can sit in for free. 2^nd – if your sixty-five years old or older you can take the class for free as well. So it’s from $900 to free. Well I have fifteen years before I can save a few bucks or I have to get a new job. If it cost $900 dollars for a twenty year old and free at sixty-five, shouldn’t it be $600 at thirty-five and $300 at fifty? I think I had a couple of story problem in elementary school math that taught me that logic. I might have gone for the $300, but $900 is a little rich for my blood – unless they could guarantee the publishable finish could be sold for as much as the outlay. The reason I’m writing these thing is just for fun and my wife would much rather spend the $900 at Disneyland rather than my signing-up for some class that fuels my evolving obsession. I guess the age-induced reduction would make sense if they had a lot of empty seats in the class. This is what hotels do, a discounted room is better than a vacant one. Maybe I should consider a tutor – then I could stop the tuition at whatever level I think it’s worth. When I was younger and went to school for free I hated to write, now that that’s not an option I think it would be great. I wonder if Adam and Eve considered eating the forbidden fruit before they were told they couldn’t. Either way I think I’ll still press forward in my mediocrity, at least for the next fifteen years then I will see what help the learned can really give me.