I just finished work for the night as the Lady Griz soundly defeated Idaho State 67-48 in Dahlberg Arena to cap off a 14 hour day. As I am a little fatigued I don’t feel like putting the energy into writing a regular post. Instead I much rather take the much less demanding route and provide all of you a true Throwback Thursday to my first ever “published” piece of writing.

The year was 1998 and I was a fourth grader at Farwell Elementary in Spokane, Washington. My class of exceptional writers (sarcasm) put together a compilation of our best work into an 8.5 by 11 inch spiral-bound booklet. We called our masterpiece “It’s Funny, It’s Tall Taley, It’s Animally and Cook Bookie”. We then sold copies as a class fundraiser for $5 each. My contribution fell under the “Animally” part of the book.

Would you pay $5 for this?

For your reading pleasure, here is a photo of my entry with the text typed out underneath it:

Not my best work ever.

MONKEYING AROUND
By Brent

Hi, I’m Brent and I’m going to tell you about a trip to the zoo I will never forget.

One hot summer day I was walking by the monkey cage when I saw a grizzly bear in the monkey cage. I quickly opened the cage and took the monkeys out. There were only three. Their names were Jake, Alex, and Peanut. I quickly scared the bear away, But then something horrible happened. The cage was locked shut. I would have to find the zoo keeper, but I couldn’t find him. Right away the monkeys were trouble. Alex started teasing the elephant, and Peanut took cotton candy from the tourists, and Jake squirted people with the hose. But then something good actually happened. The zoo keeper came by. I tried to stop him but he got away. But luckily the zoo keeper had bananas in his hands. The monkeys went over to the zoo keeper. Now those troublesome monkeys are all locked up. The end.

Just five quick thoughts:

1. Even by fourth grade standards, my writing was awful.
2. Obviously I always knew I would one day become a Griz as I couldn’t help but feature one in “Monkeying Around”.
3. Don’t you love my repetition?….One hot summer day I was walking by the monkey cage when I saw a grizzly bear in the monkey cage.
4. Why couldn’t I stop the zoo keeper? Was he sprinting? Maybe deaf? Did I really even try to stop him in the first place?
5. While my writing improved, my drawing skills never did. If you gave me a piece of paper and a pencil I would be lucky to come up with something better than that sunglass-wearing monkey.

I apologize to anyone who got swindled out of $5 to buy our fourth grade disaster. Don’t Blink.