Spelling bees have become very popular these days. They are featured on television, the movies and on Broadway. There is always an air of suspense as to who will outlast the competition and be crowned the triumphant winner.

On the National Spelling Bee from Washington D.C. the words were inordinately difficult. Scientific terms, foreign words and technical derivations are fair game and are often used. In my day (the 1950s) only commonly used words were asked to be spelled correctly.

Let me relate a story about spelling bees that changed my life.

I had just graduated from P.S. 50 (Vyse Avenue and 173rd Street in the Bronx) and entered Herman Ridder Junior high School in the seventh grade. The year was 1947.

Because of my poor deportment in P.S. 50 I was placed in what was called 7A1. All my friends were placed in the rapid advanced classes. I was smart enough but my bad conduct kept me back. I was not really a bad kid but I talked a lot in class and I always volunteered the answers, even when I wasn't called upon. In other words, I was a wise guy.

In Herman Ridder (P.S. 98) they had a schoolwide spelling contest. It was much publicized and given a lot of attention. All the schoolchildren entered the contest. Before I realized it, I was in the finals.

As speller after speller was dismissed, it came down to myself and a very bright girl. We went back and forth for a while and then it happened. She was given the word "principal" to spell. It was used in a sentence by Mr. Okun, who was running the contest. It is a homonym and she spelled what she thought was the proper spelling based on the usage in the sentence. Mr. Okun said she had spelled the word incorrectly. In those days when a contestant misspelled a word the next person had to spell the same word correctly.

I was given the same word "principle" and it took no genius to spell it right after she goofed on it.

I just spelled it the other way. I was declared spelling champ of Herman Ridder. I was the first freshman to ever win that title. It was a time of great triumph for a preteen. My pictured appeared in the school newspaper and I was a local hero.

My life was changed because I was immediately taken from 7A1 and placed in 7BRA3.

After I won, my father placed my picture article under the glass counter in our family dry goods store, for all the world to see. My non-English-speaking grandfather predicted that someday I would be a judge. It was a heady time for a 13-year-old.

I was back with my friends - P.S. 50. I skipped the eighth grade. Eventually I won the P.S. 98 spelling bee again in the ninth grade.

Today in the National Spelling Contest they give the last contestant "a new word" to spell - no re-spelling of the last given word.

I was always a year ahead, my whole life.

That is how a spelling bee changed my life.