In Which We Learn the Agony of Defeat

"We'll wake up again."

Cold weather returned, and the pretty little spring beauties and shy trout lilies closed up their petals and went back to sleep. My dreams Friday night kept me busy setting up a straw bale garden and even refinishing old farmhouse floors, and in the morning out came the winter jacket again to keep me warm in the woods with Sarah. 

Friday was the annual spelling competition on Friday afternoon at Gilbert Lodge on (one of the) Twin Lakes west of Traverse City, and once again Marilyn Zimmerman, Trudy Carpenter and I were the the bookstore team. Is it our sixth year? Marilyn and I were by ourselves the first time, and Trudy has been with us ever since.

Well, the Dog Ears Books team did not cover itself with glory this year at the Senior Spelling Bee. Perhaps, as one member remarked, we had become overconfident and needed a little reminder from Fate. Be that as it may, we went down in Round 7 when the three of us agreed to spell ‘vendible’ (the correct spelling) with an ‘a’ in the middle syllable. WRONG! Rather than stretch out the suspense, in case you’re wondering about a rule for –able and –ible words, here and here are links to the answer. We’ll know better next year. Of course, there are many exceptions to the so-called rules....

But oh, the words that appeared when the Bee Master went to his second box! Words no one present had ever encountered in a lifetime, and recall that contestants must be 55 years of age (or is it 50?) to participate! When one team went down on ‘exsert’ (it’s the opposite of ‘insert’), there were only two teams left of the seven who had begun, and when the Bee gets down to the last two teams the rules change. 

Bee Master Michael Sheehan and last two teams

If one team then misses a word, the other team must spell that word correctly and spell a second word correctly to validate their win. If the second team misses either word, it’s on to a new round. This Bee went 35 rounds, due to words such as these: farraginous, aichmophobia, rhonchial, zymurgy, ochlesis, obvallate, oneirodynia, sagittiform, roscid, agrestic, blennoid, and sybotic. How many of those do you think my spell-checking program accepts? It’s entirely possible I’ve made a mistake or two here, but I don’t think all but two are incorrect, as the program is telling me.

Bee Master consults with judges when a challenge is issued

In the end, the father-daughter team took first place this year, and they deserved to win. Second- and third-place teams also put up good, long fights. Maybe next year my friends and I will be back in the top three (where we've always been up to now), but we had a good time despite our loss, and as one team-member whose grandchildren come to watch her spell remarked in e-mail to me this morning, “I had the chance to show my grandchildren that grownups sometimes lose, and they can still go out for ice cream.”  An important lesson, I think we can all agree.

There was irony for me in the word that toppled us, as I have been reading William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, and had noticed his spelling of ‘vendible’ but had thought it must have changed since then. It hasn’t. But did you follow the links above? If you did (and even if you didn't), of the following, which spelling would you choose as correct –

COLLECTABLE

           or

COLLECTIBLE

-- and why?

Come to think of it, I probably got a much better night’s sleep refinishing floors in my dreams than going through another spelling bee. But if you take any little bit of wisdom away from today's blog post, let it be this:

“Grownups sometimes lose, and they can still go out for ice cream.” - Trudy Carpenter

Saturday morning fiddleheads

Another Very Challenging Contest Event

Gilbert Lodge, Twin Lakes Camp, Traverse City

I took this first picture and am including it primarily for my mother, Mrs. Gilbert. Not that our family has any connection to this lovely building. Coincidence, is all. But kind of fun, eh? Gilbert Lodge is the setting for Traverse City's annual Senior Spelling Bee, sponsored by Comfort Keepers. Entrants (who must be at least 55 years of age) pay five dollars each to participate and compete on teams of two or three members. We arrived in the rain, had a wonderful time, and emerged afterward into bright sunshine.

Laurie makes sure everyone is relaxed and has a good time. She makes us all laugh, sometimes at the expense of the good-natured Bee Master, Michael Sheehan. Here's Laurie introducing everyone on Friday, May 4.

Laurie

Besides being fun for the competitors, the Bee generates spending money for the Traverse City area school spelling champion on his or her trip to the national competition in Washington, D.C. That's where those entry fees go. This year's TC area contender in Washington will be Jack Pasche from Suttons Bay, and here he is with the giant check presented to him from the event sponsor, who has spread the Senior Spelling Bee idea--with connection to the national student contest--far and wide across the country:

Headed for the Nationals

This was a very tough Bee, especially after the Bee Master decided we all needed harder words, or we would be there all day. Dipping into the "more difficult" group, he came up with some doozies. Our team had to spell 'autochthonous' in Round 12, and we were given 'vichyssoise' for Round 13. By the time we got to Round 15, where another elimination left only two remaining teams, ours deliberated so long over the spelling of 'diptych,' and I, the pronouncer, was in such a tizzy over which syllable got the 'i' and which one got the 'y' that I left out one of the consonants! Fortunately for us, the other team misspelled that word, too, so we were still in the game. 'Imbroglio' gave us pause the next time around, but we did it justice. 'Ennui' was a snap. In Round 21, we looked to  the retired lawyer on our team for the correct spelling of 'rescission' after the other team had gotten it wrong, and Marilyn didn't let us down. Our confirming word, the one we had to spell correctly to cement our win, gave us fits: 'eucrasia' was the challenge. We got it! Oh, and did I mention (no, but I will now) that another word earlier in the Bee was 'echidna,' an Australian mammal? Luckily, my teammates had seen this animal recently on the Discovery Channel! For the entire list of words in this year's Bee, see Michael Sheehan's blog post on Wordmall.

Liz, Donna, and Martha

This year's third-place winners were a team always in the top three, with whom we have traded the Bee back and forth several times. Liz Bannister, on the left, 95 years old, is a spelling champion of many years. These ladies are tough competition and great sports!

Kay and Ann

The team coming in second kept us hopping for seven rounds, back and forth, back and forth. They are crack spellers, too. This was their second Bee.

Trudy, Marilyn, sponsor, bee master, and me

And here's my Dog Ears Books team, competing for the sixth consecutive year. Trudy Carpenter, Marilyn Zimmerman and I keep each other on our toes, and we enjoy our annual expedition from Northport to Twin Lakes. There was a team all the way from Antrim County on Friday, so obviously word is getting around. Gerry, doesn't that make you want to get a team together for next year? Road trip, road trip!