Early lessons informed a lifetime of speech

In the summer of 1960 I was a 15-year-old rising junior at Costa Mesa High School.

I took two classes that summer on the campus of our archrival, Newport Harbor High. I was used to attending classes at a school barely two years old. Harbor seemed ancient at 30, yet I liked its tradition-rich atmosphere.

I rode my bicycle 6 miles round trip each morning from our east-side Costa Mesa home and took classes from two of the finest teachers ever to operate in the Newport-Mesa community: Web Jones and Robert Wentz. Both had fashioned-venerated careers.

I enrolled in Jones’ summer math class and Wentz’s public-speaking course. Jones was a serious mathematician who cared about students. The puckish Wentz elicited the best from his speech students.

The math class fulfilled a graduation requirement. The speech class established the trajectory of my life’s work.

In Wentz’s class, we spent the summer delivering speeches and dramatic readings. I loved it. I discovered that I enjoyed public speaking and wasn’t half bad at it.

That same summer we had a guest pastor speak at our church. As a sermon illustration he told the “without wax” story.

Considered by most to be folklore, “without wax” comes from the Latin words sin (without) and ceras (wax). The phrase is said to have become widespread during the peak of Roman culture.

When a sculpture contained a flaw, the artist would often fill the chip or crack with colored wax to match the marble. The wax masked imperfections. A quality sculpture was said to be “without wax” and was stamped sincerus, hence the English word, “sincere.”

The story impressed me. I filed it into my memory bank.

In the fall of my junior year, Mesa received a communication from the Lions club announcing its 24th annual Student Speakers Contest, scheduled for the spring of 1961.

Speeches were to be five to 10 minutes in length. The topic was “My Responsibility in a Changing World.” My English teacher, Charles Dawe, convinced me to participate. After my positive experience in Mr. Wentz’s summer speech class, I agreed.

I wrote the speech over the winter break and Mr. Dawe provided helpful coaching and editing. The essence of my remarks was that we humans have an obligation to make the world a better place when we die than it was when we were born. I used the “without wax” metaphor to illustrate the significance of honesty.

I also tossed in a quotation from Shakespeare; you can’t go wrong with a pearl from the Bard!

I used Macbeth’s words to characterize life’s evanescence: “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I worked on the script for weeks. Then, early in the spring semester, I delivered the speech to several Mesa classes just to try it out before an audience. I received helpful feedback and further modified the text and presentation.

In early March, I delivered it alongside three or four other contestants at a dinner meeting of the local Lions club. I won. A couple of weeks later I participated in the zone competition for northern Orange County. I won again and received a cool trophy.

Several weeks after that, I presented the speech in the regionals — and won. Who would have guessed? This time the trophy was as tall as my little sister.

Finally, I advanced to the district competition in L.A. County. By now it was late April, and my speech — like an aging box of Wheaties — was growing stale. Or so I felt.

I finished second in the district competition, but that was fine with me. I was appreciative of the highly positive experience.

I ended up writing and delivering hundreds of speeches during my 40-plus-year career. I’ll always be grateful to Robert Wentz, Charles Dawe and the Lions for giving me a strong foundation.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.