The idea of __1__ a writer had come to me __2__ since my childhood in Belleville, but it wasn’t until my third year in high school that the possibility __3__.Until then I’d been __4__ by everything __5__ with English courses. I found English grammar __6__ and difficult. I hated the __7__ to turn out long, __8__ paragraphs that were __9__ for teachers to read and for me to write. When our class was __10__ to Mr. Fleagle for third-year English I __11___ another __12___ year in that most tedious of subjects. Mr. Fleagle had a __13__ among students for dullness and inability to __14__. He was said to be very _15__, rigid and hopelessly out of __16_. To me he looked to be sixty or seventy and excessively __17__. He wore primly __18__ eyeglasses, his wavy hair was primly __19_ and primly __20__. He wore prim _21__ with neckties set primly against the collar __22__ of his white shirts. He had a primly __23__ jaw, a primly _24___ nose, and a prim __25__ of speaking that was so correct, so __26___, that he seemed a comic __27__. I ___28__an ___29__ year with Mr. Fleagle and for a long time was not __30__. Late in the year we __31__ the informal __32__. Mr. Fleagle __33___ a homework sheet __34___ us a choice of __35__. None was quite so __36___ as “What I Did on My Summer Vacation,” but most seemed to be almost as __37__. I took the _38__ home and did nothing until the night before the essay was _39__. __40__ on the sofa, I finally ___41__the unwelcome __42__, took the list out of my notebook, and __43__ it. The topic on which my eye __44__ was “The Art of Eating Spaghetti.