I'm the type that holds a grudge.
I'm a bloody excellent speller, if I do say so myself. I remember being in kindergarden and having an argument with another kid about how to spell Europe. I insisted it had an E at the front and he said it didn't. The teacher wouldn't get involved because she didn't want to tell the other kid he was wrong.
I remember when I was in third grade and my family had been out the night before for some reason and we'd stopped by KFC as a treat on the way home as it was late. The sign said 'Drive Thru'. The next day our spelling test had 'through' on it and I thought that 'thru' must have been a different way of spelling it, and even though I knew how to spell it properly, I assumed that this was a different way. It was a sign, and why on earth would they spell it incorrectly? So I wrote 'thru', thinking I was oh so smart, and was told I was wrong
I explained to my teacher that I knew how to spell it properly and told him about the sign, and I still remember what he said. He laughed and told me that he had to mark me wrong but that I'd learned a lesson that day. Looking back on it now I guess I have learned a few things about the nature of fast food and consumerism, cutting corners and about believing everything I saw or heard.
I believe spelling has a hell of a lot to do with the amount of reading you do as a kid. I read book after book after book and always asked my parents or consulted a dictionary about every word I didn't quite get.