220. Word Processors

Since I like to write, I should certainly pay homage to my favorite writing mechanism of all, the word processor. I use word processing now more than any other form of writing utensil, except the ball point pen. When I was in school it was very unusual for boys to take typing, but I ended up taking it with a couple other guys because we all planned on going to college and knew we would have to write papers and, being cheap, we didn’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s typing talents for a price. So, I never paid for anyone to type my papers. By the time computers were becoming common I was a step ahead of the game because I knew how to type. Typewriters certainly have a place in my romantic notions, and I still love them dearly, but I definitely prefer the word processor.

Word processing allows for hard copy prints of all of your writing, but you can correct any errors before the writing ever sees the ink on a page. Since I am anything but a flawless typist, the ability to proof read your writing and typing BEFORE it is printed is just shy of miraculous. With a typewriter you would frequently see writing with multiple words XXXed out, or gobs of white out with letters seeming to swim in a sort of goo. As a teacher, I had to type tests onto mimeograph sets or carbon paper, so not only would I have to correct the top page with white out, I would have to peel the top sheet off and scrape the mis-typed letter off the second page then stick a bit of the mimeograph page between the two and bang out the correct letter on the second go round. I certainly would not draft my writing on a typewriter unless it was likely going to be retyped entirely. With a word processor you can just let the thoughts flow from your fingertips, careless of the fact that you reversed the i and the e because it auto corrects those minor errors, and you can quickly fix larger errors in a proof read before you ever print, email or save it.

Of course, you also save quite a bit of paper by word processing. So many things that I write now are never committed to paper. I send emails out and if the receiver prints it, it’s a huge waste of paper. You can save all the electronic writings on your hard drive or a jump drive or even the old floppy discs and compact discs if your computer is really old. I do have writing saved in those slightly older forms and no way to access it now, though I think I probably transferred anything I wanted off that to a jump drive. I have a ton of writing from years ago saved in my email accounts which are also where I am able to access word processing programs now. Buying software for computers is more in the domain of companies now because the rest of us can access most of what we need for free or a few pennies to download on our phones or laptops. Truth be told, it’s probably more expensive to buy pen and paper than it is to get some form of word processor (unless you consider the cost of the hardware).

I’ve already mentioned all the reasons I love word processing, but I will not lie and tell you I prefer it over pen and paper because I love paper and books. To me they are truly more permanent and tangible. I more often than not, feel I need to print my writing that I see as valuable just so that I have it in tangible form. Any of this writing that you see online saved somewhere on a server seems bound to disappear more quickly than the physical writing. But I know that isn’t necessarily true. We don’t have original copies of any of the ancient texts that we inscribe in our minds like the Bible, writings of Homer, Shakespeare, etc. So, the electronic impulses that are our word processing are very real. So, I love word processing.

 

 

219. Ball Point Pens

I like to write even when my writing isn’t that good, as is evidenced by this blog. That’s not, in itself, a particularly American thing, but the tools with which I write are. I am particularly fond of Bic ball point pens. The first draft (I know you’re reading this and probably finding it hard to believe that this isn’t the first draft) of this entry was written with a black Bic Ultra Bound Stic Grip. I’m equally as happy with just a clear plastic Bic, the kind where you can see through the plastic to the ink and you know how much ink you have left. The one I wrote this with was a Christmas gift in a package of ten. I will, most likely, use them all up in a couple of years running each one dry, maybe losing a couple here or there. Of course, I prefer a medium tip, and I’m not particularly concerned if the ink is blue or black.

I will, if required, use other pens but I’m not particularly fond of the kinds that are expensive and pretty, largely because they are hard to grip and I find them gradually pushing through my fingers until my fingertips are brushing the page. And I don’t want to waste money on something that I could easily lose. I don’t like writing with those pens that have a sort of felt-tippy type ball and the ink is easily smeared in the first few seconds after it hits the page. While I certainly find it romantic to think of writing with fountain pens or quill and ink, when I’ve tried it I found I spent too much time on adjusting the pen to keep from making splotches, and while the writing could look beautiful, it interfered with my thought processes, so, I returned very willingly to my Bic. I will also write with a number two pencil and feel fine about it, but I prefer the permanence of ink. So, while a nice yellow Ticonderoga pencil is good, I like the final results of my Bic.

A close second to a Bic is the British Biro, but they aren’t typically available in the US. In England and parts of the world where those types of pens are they don’t even call them anything else besides a Biro—it’s synonymous with ball point pen. In fact, if you ask for a pen you’ll either confuse them or make them think you are being quaint and old-fashioned. But I don’t want to get on a high horse here because we Yanks call tissues Kleenex and cellophane tape Scotch tape, so it’s a human branding thing as much as a language thing. But, obviously a Bic is the way for me to go when writing.

Another thing endearing about a Bic is the fact that they are available almost everywhere. They are the go-to brand at office supply stores or supermarkets. They are often imprinted with hotel names and certainly the type of pen you’ll find at every hotel desk. I blush to admit that I have a few Coeur d’Alene Casino Bic pens and a few Holiday Inn or other chain motel Bics. I’m more than happy to use those pens as they are perfect for me to hold and write with just like the one I first used to draft this blog entry.

I sometimes wonder if I would write as much if I had to use a fountain pen, but then I think back to when I used a typewriter and I know that I would. I have a school desk with holes for the ink wells, so I definitely pay my respects to the older methods of writing. And I’m just old enough to have experienced many of those methods as they were the only methods at the time. And pencils have been around for a very long time. I can imagine writing with a Ticonderoga on a regular basis. I can also imagine myself dipping the metal tip of a fountain pen into an ink well and blotting the excess with my blotter, but I don’t have to. I have a Bic and I love writing with it. 

218. Hot Springs

I grew up in a little unincorporated town in the center of Idaho along the Little Salmon River. I knew there were unique things about the area like the fact that it is in one of the deepest canyons in North America, adjacent to THE deepest canyon. Other things just seemed ordinary and I had no idea that I was one of a very few people who experienced what I did. Hot springs are just a fact of life in Idaho and they are relatively easy to find, especially where I grew up or anywhere adjacent to the Continental Divide. So, writing about something that unique, but very ordinary in my life experience, took awhile to cross my mind. I love hot springs.

Other countries don’t necessarily have many hot springs. I think it’s more common in the Pacific Rim nations that surround the “Ring of Fire.” I have never been to a hot spring in any countries outside the US, Canada, and the UK, though I know they probably are in those other countries where I’ve been. In British Columbia and Alberta, they are almost as common as in Idaho and since much of those provinces are national park, a good deal of their hot springs are developed into pools. The city of Bath in the UK is quite famous for its Roman shrine to the goddess Minerva (Greek Athena) and its resort status is ancient but I don’t think anyone bathes there anymore. Unfortunately, it has become more of a museum to ancient culture and they have removed the obvious connection to modern culture. It’s still a really cool place to visit, but don’t be thinking you’ll get to soak in hot tubs.

For me, hot springs were so common as to be used for drinking water and instead of hot water heaters some people had water coolers. There are several places where having a seat on the toilet on a cold winter’s day was not a shivering lesson in fortitude but a luxuriant basking in soothing warmth. I learned to swim in pools heated by hot springs (and, of course, the waters of the lakes and rivers of Idaho). I swam in those same pools into the depths of winter and had to be cautious with my hair in fear in would (and sometimes it would) break.

There were plenty of people of Scandinavian (especially Finnish) descent where I grew up, so getting out of the hot pools and rolling in the snow was considered a healthy thing to do, but somewhere in my teens I learned that such a drastic temperature change to my skin caused me to break out in hives. In fact, sometimes, if the air was cold enough, that would happen just when I got out of the pools. So, I learned to make sure not to go when it got below zero. I still love hot springs, even if I have to refrain from entering them on a frigid day.

I don’t really know of many hot springs in the northern part of Idaho. People here tend to cross the border into Montana or go up into British Columbia (when it’s not so hard to cross the international border) to soak in the hot springs. My favorite places to go were Zim’s Plunge a few miles south of me and just a short drive north of New Meadows. People would also go to Stinky’s Hot Springs or Riggins Hot Springs. There were also plenty of natural, undeveloped hot springs around such as Krigbaum Hot Springs. Sometimes people journeyed out to Burgdorf Hot Springs as well, but we seldom did because they were too remote in the winter and not really that attractive to us since we had so many accessible hot springs. Gold Fork Hot Springs is one that’s now open just out of Donnelly and I don’t remember it as a kid. Of course, Lava Hot Springs in eastern Idaho is the most developed that I know of in Idaho. Warm Springs Avenue in Boise has long used the natural hot waters to heat its old historic homes. While most of the hot springs in Idaho are remote and often clothing optional, you can find a nice pool, like Mundo Hot Springs near Cambridge, to soak in near a small town where people are friendly and just enjoying warm water and company.

217. Teachers

 

I taught high school and junior high school English for 35 years plus a year of student and substitute teaching. I also continue to coach young athletes so, that’s thirty-eight years that I have been around and associated with teachers, not to mention being mentored and aided by them all through my childhood. My undergraduate work was with people training to be teachers under the supervision of practicing teachers. My graduate school in English was primarily with other classroom teachers. When I go to do almost anything it is with other teachers or retired teachers. Even most of my friends that I know abroad are teachers or retired teachers. I associate my entire life with education and I feel like it has been a rich life that led me to travel and deep friendships because I can quickly empathize with and understand other teachers. While I am retired, I still consider myself a teacher and I don’t know that I can ever truly help but be a teacher, sometimes to the consternation of my wife. I love and understand the art of teaching and how teachers think. So, I love teachers.

Teachers are often given lip service by the public, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, as heroes. Still, you do not see great increases in salary. I also have heard plenty of scathing remarks toward teachers during lockdown because the public perceived them as doing nothing because suddenly parents had to be the ones nagging their children to login and work, as if the teachers weren’t working at least twice as hard trying to do the same thing remotely while also trying to figure out new ways to teach online. I certainly never used iMovie on my phone before the pandemic. I had never heard of Zoom and I never used Face Time, yet I and all of my colleagues quickly learned how to use technological platforms most of us had never dreamed of needing before. Luckily, I was able to just retire and not worry so much about it, but I have the utmost admiration for my younger colleagues who have courageously continued to keep kids engaged while it would be easy to give in to depression and anxiety, especially for teens who can easily succumb to that without a pandemic.

Teachers are just amazing people who have a passion for learning and want to share that passion. Teachers believe in constantly expanding horizons. Most are unassuming people who seem incredibly ordinary and then like a bud opening to the sun they get in front of kids and outshine academy award winning actors. Only a few special people get to see that while experiencing a sort of love that is clearly demanding, but gentle and true. I just love that about teachers. I also know that their black faculty lounge humor could quickly lead an outsider to believing these people are perhaps not the most fit human beings to care for their children. That also makes me laugh.

I love teachers. I love that I put my career into teaching and that all of my best friends are also teachers. I love the creative ways that teachers make ways to continue in relatively low paying jobs and how they find ways to spread the wealth of their own educations that extend far beyond their own financial means. They persevere against insane government mandates and care for their students as humans, not statistics for display. Teachers are wonderful people that make me proud to be in their ranks.

216. Oranges

 

It’s the holiday season and one of the traditional stocking gifts here in the Northwest used to be an orange. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries fresh oranges were hard to come by in this part of the country because of the lack of and expense of refrigerated or iced transport. That made fresh oranges a bit of an exotic gift around here so having a fresh orange from California (Florida is too far away) was a real treat. Oranges are probably my favorite citrus fruit, so getting an orange in my stocking was always fun and I’ve continued that tradition in my family. I had a really hard time finding Blood oranges this year, so when I found some in Rosauers I snatched them up.

I like just about everything orange in flavor. Terry’s chocolate oranges from Britain are a favorite of mine. I love chocolate covered orange sticks. I also love those candy orange slices.  Orange sherbet or orange gelato are my favorite frozen desserts, especially with a bit of chocolate. I love orange candy truffles. The best cranberry sauce for me is fresh cranberries, oranges, and sugar all blended together. This is the season for all of those flavors because oranges are now in season and they can easily be transported from California or Florida or wherever to this part of the country in these times. And I love fresh oranges. I have always taken oranges with me as my lunch time fruit if they were available. Of course, good oranges aren’t always available, so I’m happy to have an apple as well.

There are a variety of oranges that I enjoy. The typical orange that I’ve always thought about is the Navel orange. It’s the one I remember eating as a kid, the one with the nice big sections that make one bite. And then the canned oranges were always Mandarin oranges. In adulthood I have discovered that Mandarins and Clementines (little cuties) are the kind that are easy to peel and you can easily eat two of them without feeling too much guilt about eating too much. Then there are tangerines which are slightly larger than a Mandarin and not such a round shape but also fairly easy to peel. I confess to some ignorance about orange varieties because I’ve heard that tangerines might not actually be oranges and if that’s the case, I can accept that like I can accept that nectarines aren’t peaches (even though they really are peaches without the fuzz). There are now Cara Cara Navel oranges that seem to me to be some cross with a Blood orange or something because they have a reddish tint to their flesh but they are Navel in every other way. I never really knew what Blood oranges were until I went to Italy and now I realize they can be bought (and grown) in the US as well. This lack of orange knowledge—like how I can’t really tell a Navel from a Valencia—comes from what I told you earlier about oranges being somewhat exotic to this part of the country. That also explains a little bit about why I love oranges—they’re exotic, the things of Christmas stockings. But I also always had oranges around me in one form or another. I remember as a kid not really getting overly excited about orange juice, mostly because it was always canned. But then sometime in the seventies they started selling frozen concentrate and I fell in love with it. Again, they’re exotic and not around here and shipping frozen goods wasn’t a big thing yet in the sixties. But now oranges are pretty common. And I love oranges.