I’m A Teacher… Whaddaya Want?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I discovered something amazing awhile ago… the typewriter.  ”The typewriter?” you might ask, “But why use a typewriter?  Isn’t a computer better?”  I say nay.

This isn’t just any typewriter.  It’s the legendary IBM Selectric III, the greatest electric typewriter ever produced, and a miracle of human achievement.  This particular typewriter came to be in my posession by the most circuitous route imaginable.  A few months ago, I had decided that writing exclusively on the computer wasn’t working for me.  In fact, most everything I had written over the last couple of years was written mostly on post-it notes and then stuck in the pages of a Moleskine notebook.  I needed a solution, but typing on the computer was bugging me.  At times I almost felt like I wanted to push my hands through the screen so I could actually touch the words.  Confused?  So was I.  Then it hit me.  Typewriter.

I started looking around at garage sales, but nothing turned up.  I looked on Craigslist all over Idaho for a decent typewriter, but found nothing.  Utah was also a no-go.  I was actually willing to drive 8 hours round-trip to pick up a 30-year-old typewriter.  I needed help.  Eventually I found one, but the only problem was that it was back in my home town, San Luis Obispo.  I managed to talk my mother, (God bless her) into picking it up for me, and sending it out to Idaho with a friend of ours who was driving out to go to college.  Jackpot.  Two months after locating it, straining familial relationships to procure it, and talking a poor 18-year-old college bound girl to drive it 1000 miles, I finally had my typewriter sitting on my kitchen table.  I plugged it in.  Nothing happened.

Luckily I found an honest-to-God typewriter repairman in Idaho falls.  (I know, I didn’t know they still existed either.)  The guy was like a thousand years old, and told me he had been fixing these machines since he was a little kid running around his dad’s shop.  Cool.  After a couple of days and an undisclosed amount of money, I had a brand-new made-in-1982 IBM Selectric III Typewriter.  It’s amazing.  I write everything on it now.  I create worksheets for my seniors, and I write journal entries.  It’s a lovely machine, and it hums when you turn it on.  It’s almost like it has a heartbeat, or like its singing to you.  

Really, writing on a typewriter is so much more visceral than writing on a computer.  You feel undeniably connected to the machine.  I get the same feeling for my typewriter as I get for some of my mechanical watches, like maybe they have more soul than their modern counterparts, like there’s a little piece of that old man living inside my typewriter, just like there’s a piece of an old watchmaker living inside my timepiece.  

Well, it’s finally time…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, I know what you’re all thinking.  “Why ‘Unsanitize’?  Is that even a word?”  Well, in short, no.  It isn’t a word.  It’s a concept.  It’s a way to live.  I think back and remember what it was like to be a kid wandering around the neighborhood looking for adventure on a Saturday morning, or staring at the bugs I caught in a mayonnaise jar, trying to think up names for them.  I remember when a trip to the community pool was all I needed to ensure a fantastic summer day.  I remember being fearless and daring in the way that only ten-year-olds can be.  I remember living life, and I remember that it was great.

But it’s not what I see today.  Today I see people living lives of fear-induced sanitization.  Lives devoid of the simple things that gave us so much pleasure as children, lives running low on wonder and amazement, and lives decidedly lacking in adventure.  Fear takes up most of our time, and pessimism takes the rest.  For some reason we seem to have given up on the wonderful things, choosing instead that which is widely accepted and available, unremarkable, predictable, and convenient.  In short, we have become an uninspired people who suffer through the details in search of the big picture.

That can all change, though.  We can Unsanitize our lives.  We can get rid of these paralyzing fears and phobias that we have embraced in recent years, and we can get back that sense of wonder and optimism that was for so long a part of the great American Experience.  We can find pleasure in everyday activities, cultivate new skills, take time to laugh, and most importantly, find time to love.  We can look forward to the future while remembering the past.  And that’s what this is for.  To find wonderful things, share ideas, and get our hands a little dirty.  We’ll find the good things and label the bad stuff for what it is. 

 

We can Unsanitize our lives, and perhaps along the way, we can find happiness in the details.