Grumpy Old Ganz

Education Is Important

Education is an important part of the world we live in today and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

However, there was a time when reading, writing and arithmetic were all a person needed to be successful!

To be brutally honest, English wasn’t something I excelled in. I had a hard time justifying why more than the basics were needed. I knew how to “write”. I found myself trying to find any job of interest to me that I didn’t need an “English degree” to complete my job duties.

But...life has a funny way of throwing a wrench into things from time to time and we find ourselves adapting.

Moving on in life I found that simple English was enough since what I needed to write always started with “On the above date and time”… No one cared about grammar or sentence structure as long as the right information was conveyed in the reports I wrote which were a part of my job. Not once did I get a report back with “red marks” or comments like “great topic…poor grammar” on it!

When I began to write an occasional story or a column early on for the newspaper, those famous “red marks” and added “comments” showed up continually…causing a lot of re-writes. At one point the editor said “just email it to me…I can fix it faster than you can” which was so true!

What would generally take me hours to fix in an article, the editor could do in minutes. And occasionally my sentences were reworded or information was added that would clarify something in my story or just plain make it sound better.

We all have our strong and weak points. My weakness is grammar! It’s so bad I bought some books to maybe make the editor’s job a little easier, and for me to learn what I should have paid attention to in school.

So to the person who goes that extra mile for me…I bow to your greatness and appreciate your effort to make me look like I “had” paid attention in class!