Literary Giants

Someone said something last night that I found really interesting and vitally important. I wonder what it was.

Today's Spanish class is going to be about literature. (Litter at cher...own risk) Our teacher, Blad, from Translaterania is a lit enthusiast and my fellow student, Alan, is both a writer and former lit teacher. I'm sure they will bring their literary favorites to the discussion and names like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Dickens will all be bandied about. Not wanting to be left out, I will contribute my early influences in the field of great writing, those being Claire Bee, E. Rice Burroughs and Bob Kane. For those of you unfamiliar with these literary giants, they were the writers of the Chip Hilton series (The Hardy Boys of sports), Tarzan and the Batman comic books respectively. You may scoff if you must, but cover your mouth when you do so because we don't want that to spread.

It was from Claire I learned all my ethics. Winners never cheat and cheaters never win, it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game and cover your mouth when you scoff being some of them.

From Burroughs, and this is E. Rice not William, I learned that a man could be raised by apes, kill lions and crocodiles with nothing but his bare hands and a big knife while living happily with a hot babe in a tree house that lacked even the barest of essentials like a satellite dish. I haven't had a chance to put all this to the test just yet, but I did once shoot a rabbit. Of course I felt bad later and I'm sure Tarzan would have too. (From Burroughs, William I learned some other things, but this is a family blog.)

Kane was the earliest of my influences besides the magazines I found at my Uncle Bill's house as I pretty much learned to read from him. I wanted to know what those little black marks he put in the bubbles above Batman and Robin's heads were trying to tell me. I was just no good at figuring out the pictures. In fact, even now I wish they'd go back to putting words on the road signs. A picture of a truck going downhill doesn't tell me a damn thing.

So there you have the intellectual discourse I will be taking to class. Luckily, I'll be speaking Spanish and no one will understand me anyway.