Dear Mr. Curry,

Cramming my 5’11” self into the desk on the back row in the corner of the classroom, I spied a stack of papers written on loose leaf paper laying face down on your desk. As you walked in the room, my senior classmates quieted. Clearing your throat, you selected a paper and began to read. Recognizing the words, my face flushed crimson red as I tried to slide further down in the tiny desk. Surely my classmates would recognize it was my paper because the topic sentence began with a girl driving her convertible. Though she had blonde hair and my hair was brown, her convertible matched my baby blue 1975 Oldsmobile convertible. No one looked my way nor did you reveal the author. Once you finished reading, my angst of having my paper read distracted me so I could only grasp that your comments were something about excellent topic sentence. Sitting a bit taller, the rest of the class was a blur. From then on I looked forward to creative writing projects ready with a pack of loose leaf paper and black ink pens.
The year was 1984.

Fast forward to 2022. Just last week, perched on a stool at a coffee bar where I write weekly, I told that story to a fellow writer friend. A friend I met recently when I finally decided after raising 3 kids to gather the stories I’d written in the margins of cookbooks and on random scratch pads together. I had joined a writing class to propel me to get serious about writing a book about my daughter who has a quick wit and an extra chromosome. Sipping coffee, my friend and I swapped stories of people that unknowingly encouraged us to write. So I told her about you and the story above. At the time, I had no idea you were about to retire!

On another class day, you assigned the term paper. Excited about my topic, Fashion History, my smile faded as you announced the specs for how it had to be typed. Margins, headings, line spacing, word count etc. Typed! I didn’t know how to type nor did I own a typewriter. Being in the first decade of students that you taught, my classmates and I predated computers. Besides, I had spent my entire school age life leaning out of my desk admiring my best friend’s handwriting. I aspired only to make capital A’s in cursive with the same artistic curves that rolled into swooping ends linking more beautiful letters as only Ashley Graham could create. Typing was beyond my aspirations. Out of desperation, I followed a friend down Old Shell Road past Weidemiers to a little house where a lady promised to type our papers following your guidelines.

Two days before the papers were due, we rode with the top down on the convertible to pick up our papers. Back at the car, we discovered a disastrous mess of small margins, no headings, and a lot of liquid paper covering mistakes. I was holding a sure fire F in may hands. Your voice boomed in my head “a late paper is an F”. Time was not on my side. By sheer luck, we found another typist. However, the night before it was due I discovered some typos. Dad agreed to take it to be corrected while I went to school the next morning. Sick to my stomach waiting for 5th period, I stood by Mrs. Shed’s office door watching the second hand tick tock as if a bomb would go off when the bell for your class rang. But with 5 seconds to spare, I caught site of my dad’s suit coat blowing behind him as he bounded up the stairs. The pages barely touched my fingertips before I turned to hand the finished paper to you as I walked to my desk.
A term paper was meant to teach a senior how to manage time, use the library for research, and prepare students for the rigors of college. Instead, I learned one thing-learn to type.

Thank you for the lessons you taught me and so many students!