Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Tupper, and Dr. Bob Kirby

The guy who worshipped basketball as a kid sometimes didn’t make the team. You know the kid, the one who could smell out a backyard game of horse from blocks away. That statistical Svengali versed in the most obscure stat on every baller who pulled on an NBA jersey. The kid who epitomized basketball sometimes just didn’t make the team. I empathize with that kid. My present attitude on writing mirrors his experience. I love writing; I study it, teach it, and practice it. Whenever possible I read as many new authors as possible. I just can’t make the team. Yet.
Three teachers, from very different levels of education, are at the origin of my current attitude about writing. In fifth grade Norma June Peterson struck the spark. She assigned writing assignments that were begging to be explored by a highly active, imaginative, disorganized, semi-rebellious, secretely-sensative boy. I loved Mr. Peterson. We wrote tall tales, the taller the better, and poems about football, and the moon. We memorized poetry. “I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I know not where. Who has sight so keen and strong that it can follow the flight of song.”? I still remember it.
Barb Tupper taught me a completely new way to look at writing. We read Catcher In The Rye, stories from The Canterbury Tales, A Tale of Two Cities, and of course several books by Willa Cather. Through Mrs. Tupper I learned to look at literature as writing not reading. This sweet, sweet lady genuinely knew writing; I just wish she would have felt better physically. Symbolism, protagonist, theme, and conflict-terms I teach kids today first gained legs in her classes. Mrs. Tupper loved good writing, and she recognized something in me. Her feedback was always cherished, her praise always unadulterated. As a junior I won a speech-writing contest. Sponsored by the VFW, the Voice of Democracy contest that year asked young authors to write a paper titled “My Role In America’s Future. I can’t remember what I wrote, I’m sure it was bullshit. I can remember Mrs. Tupper calling me up to her desk, showing me the flyer announcing the winner of the contest. She smiled, “You’re a writer Ted,” She knew then. I just wish I had her confidence.
As my long drawn out years of undergrad study was winding down I took one last English class. Dr. Bob Kirby was my teacher. Dr. Kirby was teaching his last semester. He was looking forward to moving to Fairplay, Colorado to live in the cabin he built with his own hands. Dr. Kirby was great. A big fan of O Henry, he assigned several of the author’s short stories for us to read. In class discussing an assigned reading I always had a different slant on the story than my fellow students. I was at least 10 years older than most of them, and I’m sure that had something to do with my warped view on O Henry’s Americana. Kirby loved me, he loved my opinions, and he loved my writing. With each reading assignment came a writing assignment. Knowing we would be getting our writing assignments back that day always made me nervous as hell. What would he say? Would he hate it? He almost always had positive, encouraging feedback to offer. The last day of class with Dr. Kirby I stayed behind a few minutes to say goodbye. He encouraged me as he always did to change my major from education to English. I didn’t. He then told me “You have a knack for writing Ted, keep it up.” I have.