P-R-I-D-E

Mom told me this 1994 story about her dad.

“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18).

My dad was a very good speller and for a long time I thought I could do a good job of it, too. However, from time to time I did recall a spelling bee in sixth grade. The word I missed was “success.” That could have been an omen for my future problems. I’ve reached the stage of needing to keep a dictionary handy – even for words I used to know perfectly well.

Yesterday I looked through this notebook in hopes of finding an inventory sheet. (Mom kept a ring binder filled with numerous stories she had written.) What I did find was that I had misspelled “autobiographies.”

I have learned that a young person can make an error (in fact, all sorts of goofy errors) and pass it off as, “I just have so many things on my mind, I can’t remember all the details.”

An older person is much more apt to say, “Woe is me! I’m losing my mind.”

Well, for what it’s worth, I have it on good authority – I am not old. After giving the matter several minutes of thought, grandma once informed me, “You start to get old at 80.”