A Little Harmony Is All I Need: Articles, Short Stories and Essays

By George L. Allen

A Little Harmony Is All I Need is a book of stories, speeches and essays which "I have written over the years." These writings delineate certain aspects of Allen's teaching career, which began in 1970. The book also demonstrates a twin-emotional pull which Allen received from his teaching and his desire to write. Each one of these twin-endeavors gave him boundless joy and made him feel that he was living a purposeful life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483656311

George L. Allen

George L. Allen is a retired English teacher who is still teaching part-time. He specializes in the teaching of Speed, Critical, and Developmental Reading, all of which he has taught at Mission College in Santa Clara, California. Allen claims that nothing gives him more pleasure than to see the satisfied look in a student's eyes and on a student's face when he or she has just learned something new about reading. Allen believes that this special look which he receives even now from his students "is worth more to me than all the money in the world."

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Copyright © 2013 by George L. Allen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 09/12/2013

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CONTENTS

1.   A Dream Deferred

2.   A Little Harmony is All I Need

3.   All Quiet on the Western Front

4.   A Note on Some Teachers Who Have Profoundly Affected My Life

5.   A Stranger Showed Me The Way

6.   A Tribute to Esther Stone

7.   A Tribute to the People upon Whose Shoulders We Stand

8.   A Visit from the Muse

9.   Big Boys Don’t Cry

10.   Devoted Americans Nonetheless

11.   How Teaching Got into Me

12.   How You Can Become a Better Reader

13.   I Remember Marcus

14.   Look at the Picture and Forget the Frame

15.   Looking Back on the Days of My Growing Up

16.   My Book Is My Best Friend

17.   Some Reflections on Lust for Life

18.   Some Reflections on The Ballad of Old Man Peters

19.   Some Thoughts about a Story that Moved Me Like Few Others

20.   Some Thoughts about The Philosopher King

21.   The Brave Soldier

22.   The Da Vinci Code Did Not Contaminate Me

23.   The Day the Boy Became a Man

24.   The Day The Tramp Came

25.   The Discovery

26.   The Enigma of Amadeus

27.   The Last Day in the Life of a Dog

28.   Visiting the Japanese Tea Gardens

Dedicated to Helen M. Allen, the love of my life, my best friend and my wife of 50 years. She passed away in 2011, and because I miss her tremendously, I give her credit—posthumously—for standing by me during the up-and-downs of our lives together.

A Dream Deferred

By George L. Allen

W hen I was young and foolish, I thought of myself as a talented writer who would one day burst upon the world scene with shocking, entertaining works of literature. My lofty ambition, which at that time existed somewhere in the clouds, insisted that my artistic production—once it got underway—be of the highest quality. I simply knew that the novels and short stories and the magazine articles that would flow from my hands would be gems. These works of genius would be so superbly crafted they would enable me to easily bridge the gap of silence between me, the writer, and the teeming multitude of my readers. My skill would be so great that it would enable me to make the characters in my novels and short stories absolutely come to life on the page, compelling my readers to love, hate and understand them, as I did. My spellbinding plots and provocative themes would capture the reader’s imagination in a web of verisimilitude so irresistible that once my readers picked up one of my novels, short stories or magazine articles, they wouldn’t be able to put the thing down until they reluctantly reached the last, enjoyable word.

As I look back on these early times, and on my early interest in writing, I’m amazed at how naive and cocky I was, how bubbling over with enthusiasm, how sure I was that I would eventually succeed. As I reckon it, the reason for this overweening self-assurance was simple: I knew I could use words effectively. After all, hadn’t I proven it in high school and in the various creative and expository writing classes that I’d taken in college? Completely caught under the spell of using words as the raw materials for ideas, I learned to put my stories together in a way that grabbed and held a reader’s interest. Even at that young age, when I was nothing more than a raw and inexperienced greenhorn, I could manipulate Theme, Setting, Conflict, Character, Action, and Plot far beyond what was expected of my callow youth; and whenever necessary, I could reach into my full toolbox and immediately come up with an expressive simile, a far-fetched metaphor, or an extravagant, eye-catching, ear-popping hyperbole. I was full of myself then because I knew I was talented, and that it would be only a matter of time before this talent would be discovered, enabling me to make the threatening—and sometimes intimidating—reading audience take me seriously. Then, along the way, a strange thing happened.

After I took the risky plunge into the mysterious, demanding world of writers—by sending in a few stories and picking up a few rejection slips—I got sidetracked into other competing ventures. Although my interest in writing didn’t wane altogether, I found myself enrolling in Hastings Law College in San Francisco, where I seriously studied law. When I discovered that I didn’t have the combative spirit that it takes to succeed as a lawyer, I began taking singing lessons and was giving some serious thought to becoming a concert singer. Quite obviously, during this period, I was searching for and trying to decide upon a career to which I could devote my life. Eventually I discovered something about myself: I could use my resonant voice, not in singing, but in speaking. When I found out that I could inspire and motivate people, that I could explain ideas forcefully and effectively, I went enthusiastically—and wholeheartedly—into teaching.

I have few regrets about the choice I made, and I feel good about myself and my work. I know I am a good teacher, and what I do in the classroom has given me unusual opportunities to touch the lives of thousands in a very special way. Many people in my position—involved in helping students discover who they are as people—would feel tremendously proud and lucky if they were teachers, as though they had already found the particular niche in their lives.

But I can’t feel that way at all. I’m still unsatisfied. Never having left me, the demon that makes me want to be a writer won’t give me any peace. More than thirty years after I made what I thought was the most momentous decision of my life—to become a teacher—I’m still being annoyed by nagging feelings of doubt, of unfulfillment. These feelings keep bombarding me with inward-looking, basically unanswerable questions: What if I hadn’t allowed myself to be diverted into teaching? What if I had kept plugging along with my early ambitions? If I had kept on struggling, pushing the intermittent failures aside, what would I be doing now? Would I be working on another short story or novel? Or researching another article?

As I reflect—with some regret—on these earlier years, I have to be honest with myself and face a conclusion that I’ve been dodging all these years. Simply stated, the reason I’m not a writer today is my youthful ambition was not big enough. I was afraid to live with the unavoidable uncertainties that every writer must accept. After a few editors told me they couldn’t use my submissions, I became discouraged and unwilling to continually risk rejection and failure, those ever-present bugaboos of the writing profession. I wasn’t willing to endure the hardship and discouragement that are parts of the writing apprenticeship. And what did I do? Now that I look back on it, I took the easy way out. I settled back into the relatively risk-free comforts of my job, and although I became a successful teacher, I put my dream of becoming a skillful writer on hold.

That was then, however. This is now. The intervening years have made me wiser. They have helped me take an inventory of my present frame of mind. I know now that becoming a writer is going to take more than just an abundance of raw talent. If I hope to succeed, if I want to become a writer who makes money from and receives recognition because of his talent, I will have to develop a hard resolve and a sense of direction, which (in spite of my youthful braggadocio) is something I apparently didn’t have before. Nothing must stand in the way of my writing. Not my job, not my family. Nothing. Upon making the decision to channel my creativity into writing, I must learn to become angrily mule-headed when somebody threatens that block of time I need to master my new chosen craft. I must develop an unyielding tenacity and a reawakened courage, which will make me willing to risk failure and disillusionment. When bad times come, and I’m not able to get anything published, I must keep on writing. I must continue to have faith in my work and faith in myself. I’m fully aware that because I’m making the commitment to writing much later than most professionals, some may say that my age is a liability, a totally insurmountable barrier. But why should I throw up my hands in abject defeat because of my more than 80 years of living? These years have been especially rich and full of rewarding experiences, and these experiences will give me a tremendous advantage over my competition. These years of experience will enable me to write from a perspective not possible for writers half my age.

As I view my decision and my new commitment, I have no illusions about what lies ahead. Professional writing is difficult to break into. There is so much to learn, and I can expect the learning process to be occasionally painful. This time, however, I’m ready for the pain because I know that if I endure it, I’ll eventually reach my goal. If I keep on working—by making sure that I do some writing everyday, by not being afraid to send in my stories, even if some of them are destined to collect rejection slips—I’ll be learning something about this compelling craft, which refuses to give me any peace. If I can do all these things, my deferred dream of consistently writing salable material will become a reality. Surely this—like my teaching—will give me more than a modicum of pleasure.

A Little Harmony is All I Need

By George L. Allen

T he most engrossing thing in my life right now is a compelling desire to write. When I’m not carrying on my duties as husband, father, and teacher, my thoughts are always on what I must do to advance my career in this risky, competitive line of work. At such times, some thought-provoking questions run through my mind. What can I do to shift my schedule around so that I can get back to that short story I was working on? How can I shape that essay and make the ideas it contains more penetrating and poignant? How can I expand that unusually appealing narrative sketch I’ve been working on, so that scene by scene and chapter by chapter, it will develop into a mind-boggling novel?

Sometimes I feel this desire has become an obsession that makes me want to write more than I want to teach. When I’m in front of a group of students guiding, challenging, and inspiring them, in the back of my mind, there is a mysterious inner-voice repeating to me in drumbeat fashion a nagging observation. This voice tells me that I have reached a crossroad in my life, and I must put all the energies I can into developing a writing career. I must think about my craft at every opportunity. At all times, I’ve got to keep my eyes and ears open, and I must always have my notepad nearby—because when I least expect it, something interesting might happen. An idea might come, and it might be the raw material I need to shape an ordinary-appearing event into a suitable magazine article, or an intriguing short story.

Along with being alert and observant, if I want to succeed as a writer, I must possess a driving quest for perfection that won’t allow me to be lackadaisical in working on my writing problems. This uncompromising zeal will keep me busy, trying to make my writing better.

As I watch myself grow as a writer, I find myself seizing every opportunity to gain a modicum of control over my life. I want and need this control because it will make me feel free. For the first time in many years, I won’t have to be a slave to the clock. My time will be my own, and I will be able to use more of it to improve. As a freelancer, I’ll be able to research nonfiction projects. I’ll write short stories and essays, and compose and revise a continuous flow of manuscripts, making a point of involving myself completely in the tedious, but enjoyable, struggle of capturing my ideas and putting them on paper.

As I achieve more success with this challenging career, I’ll have to work much harder than I ever have. But that will be okay—because the work will be work I choose to do, and I can do it on my own terms.

So I’ve reconciled myself to this reality. There won’t be any harmony in my life until I’m spending the bulk of my time doing everything I can to further my ambition of becoming a published writer. In the never-ending struggle to improve, here’s the kind of future I envision for myself.

At night, when everybody else is asleep, I’ll be crawling out of my cozy bed to go to my trusty old computer. As I watch words emerge mysteriously first on the screen, and then on the page, I’ll still be a little apprehensive. However, this fear will disappear when I witness a little miracle taking place. I will find myself in that special zone where the Muse seems to be speaking just to me, where the words I write seem to be heaven-sent, where I’m