1190 Plagiarism

Thursday, March 29, 2007

I am currently reading a novel (title and author don't matter) wherein the middle aged protagonist is suffering delayed anguish over having committed plagiarism in college.

It reminded me of my one (conscious) instance of plagiarism.

Fifth grade composition class, Ottawa, Canada, 1955. The last assignment of the year was to write about something very sad that we had seen or experienced.

I couldn't think of anything. That's really strange, because my life was full of sadness. My only conclusion is that I must have been depressed. Or shell-shocked.

I mentioned in a recent entry that I had lived in five different houses in Benton. Four of those five were between the middle of first grade, and a month into fifth grade. The first house was next door to the landlord. They asked us to move within a year. The second was an apartment next door to the landlord, and below the landlord's daughter's apartment. They asked us to move within the year. The third was one side of a duplex house, and the folks in the other half complained to the landlord, and we had to move within months. The fourth was the big stand-alone house, with an absentee landlord. We were there more than a year, until we moved to Canada.

The reason we kept getting thrown out was because my father screamed obscenities almost every evening, smashed things against the walls, and beat my mother and us kids. Neighbors didn't like hearing the crashing and screaming.

My mother maintained postal friendships with all those people until the day she died. I guess they felt sorry for her, but there was nothing anyone could do, and hearing it was just too hard.

So, there was that. But that was normal.

The pet Easter chicks grown to roosters we had in the big house? We kids were told that they had been sent to a farm, where they'd live with lots of hens and have fun. Then one day at dinner, we were served two little skinny tough chickens. We recognized them, even without their feathers.

So, there was that. But that was normal.

When we moved to Ottawa (my father was with the embassy), our house wasn't ready, and we lived in a different school district for several months, then moved again. I was in three different schools for fifth grade, and felt lost and unaccepted.

So, there was that. But that was normal.

I couldn't see the blackboard in school. I used to "read" what was on the board by watching the teacher's hand as she wrote. The school gave us an eye test, and then sent a note home to my parents that I had to have a formal exam. I came out at 20/400. Uncorrected, that's past legally blind. I got glasses. My father allowed me to wear them to school because the school insisted, but when I wasn't in school, he took them away and wouldn't allow me to wear them, because he didn't want me to get dependent on them. He wanted me to try harder to see. He'd test me, and beat me when I couldn't see, because I refused to try hard enough.

So, there was that. But that was normal.

We kids had no toys, and very little clothing, because every time we moved, non-essentials were discarded. Emotional attachment was not allowed. Anything accumulated between moves usually ended up smashed during a paternal rage.

So, there was that. But that was normal.

I couldn't think of anything sad to write about for the composition assignment. Maybe because sadness was so much of my normal life, I couldn't recognize any specific thing as sad. The "sad things" other kids were going to write about seemed so unimportant, not sad at all. Things that saddened others, well, they were things I'd just shrug off as minor.

The night before the assignment was due, I still had nothing. Nothing that had ever happened to me and nothing I'd ever seen, had been sad enough to bother writing about.

So I asked my mother. She mentioned a passage in a book she had read, where a child sitting on a school bus sees a dog get hit by a car.

So I used that. Word for word. Right out of the book.

I got an "A" on it. But I always got "A"s in that subject, so it didn't really feel like cheating. I felt only mildly guilty.

Until my parents got the letter that my composition had been chosen to represent my school in a district competition. I wanted to climb into a hole.

Then the letter that I had won the district competition, and my composition would be going to the all-city level. I wanted to pull the dirt in on top of me.

Then the letter that I had won all-city, and it was going to provincial level. I tried to stop breathing.

No more letters came.

I'm still waiting for the letter that says I'm going to jail.

I feel guilty because the second place winners didn't get to move up. I wish I knew why I didn't win province level. If it was because some other fifth-grader's composition was better, then it's ok. But if it was because some judge recognized the passage and disqualified me, then that means the school, district, and all-city second-placers might otherwise have had a chance to win.

If I had it to do over, I guess I could write about that..