I've been competitive for as long as I can remember. I can't say exactly where the fire came from. Certainly not from my Dad who frowned on Type A behavior. Why, he once wondered out loud, were we fertilizing the grass? The faster it grows, the more often it needs to be cut. Nature is fecund enough. No need to encourage it. 

Later, he advised us kids to become school teachers or civil servants. You won't get rich, he conceded, but you're not likely to get fired either. Or, work yourself into an early grave. 

My Dad mostly took his own advice and left the midnight oil and the ulcers to others. He also lived to the ripe old age of 90 and died sitting in his favorite easy chair. 

I kept it to myself, but I always had high expectations. I wanted to win at everything:  baseball, spelling bees, checkers, and even the nightly round of after-dinner "I Spy." My Dad often looked at me like he couldn't figure out where I came from. 

We often played a game at Sunday School where we raced to find Bible verses. We would hold our closed Bibles in front of us; the teacher would call out a verse: "John 3:16"; and we've frantically flip through the pages until someone found it. 

For our adult teacher, it was probably a way to pass time before the really serious business -- preaching -- began.  But, I took it seriously. So seriously that I memorized the books of the Bible: Old Testament and New. In order. 

So, when our sixth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Summerlin, announced that we were going to play a grammar game -- and for grades -- I was ready to rumble. Or, so I thought.

On a Monday morning, Mrs. Summerlin gave each student a ribbon to wear on their breast. Over the next five days, a student overheard misspeaking would forfeit a ribbon to the student who caught the error. On Friday, grades would be assigned based on the number of ribbons each student had. None was bad.  One or two, satisfactory.  Three or more, good. 

The idea was to promote proper grammar among a demographic for which the term redneck was invented. We were not just country, but Deep South country. 

Second-person singular and plural was "y'all." "Ain't" was ubiquitous. Prepositions were dangled and g's dropped.  Lie was lay and may was can, and never the twain shall meet.

This was going to be more fun than a 'possum hunt.  And about as genteel. The whole affair, you see, was self-policed. If you caught a classmate in a mistake -- "Let's go in the room." -- you asked them to relinquish a ribbon. You had to be careful though. Ask "Can I have your ribbon?" and you forfeited it right back.

The real problem was with those who refused to admit their error. If there were witnesses to the verbal faux pas, the witnesses were appealed to, but lacking witnesses, you had your basic "He said, she said" impasse. Voices were raised, feelings hurt, and friendships tested.  Who knew?

Some students refused to play, losing their ribbon early and happy for it. They were the same ones who seldom did their homework and never answered questions in class. They would be promoted along with the rest of us. They also got to enjoy a stress-free week and probably will live to100. That never occurred to me at the time.  Mostly, I pitied them. 

I suspected that several others hid their ribbon and insisted they had none. How would you know? All they needed was to produce a single ribbon on Friday to get a passing grade. 

A few simply refused to speak unless it was absolutely necessary. I thought that violated the spirit of the exercise, but silence wasn't prohibited by the rules -- such as they were. 

Besides being ultra competitive, I'd always been an outsider of sorts: watching and analyzing from the periphery before choosing a course of action. And, I didn't like what I saw that Monday after the ribbons were handed out.

First, the competition wasn't fair. Some of the kids had no chance. That's a fact and they knew it too. That's why they gave up so readily and feigned contempt. How else could they save face?

I was a redneck too, but I was determined not to remain one forever. So, I read everything I could get my hands on and did all the homework assigned and more. I also had an excellent memory for facts and figures, so grammar rules weren't a problem. 

That first morning, I took a ribbon from a classmate who made such an egregious error that I couldn't resist. He seemed relieved to be rid of the thing, but that didn't make me feel any better.  In fact, I felt like an intellectual bully. And, I didn't like bullies of any sort.

There was worse to come. Later that day, I caught one of my best friends, Ronald Penuel, in a mistake. He wasn't even aware of it. I had a split-second to make a decision. 

I decided that it wasn't worth it. I could raise my grade, but only at the expense of a friend.  I kept quiet. He kept his ribbon. We're still friends. 

Then and there, I saw that this exercise wasn't much fun. It was one thing to compete when the playing field was relatively level and winning didn't materially affect my friends, i.e., lower their grades. 

I found that I liked to win, but that even competition had its limits. I also discovered that humility is not the other side of pride. The goal should be to find a proper balance between them. 

I ended the week with three ribbons: the one I began with, the one I acquired almost by default, and a third that I took from an intellectually-obnoxious classmate.  Others had more; most had less. I had just the right number.  For me. 

Oh, yeah, my Dad had the last laugh. I became a teacher.