Mr. Kevin Ettinger        

    One day I was returning papers to the seventh graders I teach. One of them piped up, "What kind of pen do you use? It's really cool." "Yeah, it is. It's a fountain pen. I love fountain pens."

            The next day, on my list of things to do was to buy cartridges for my fountain pen, and I had the impulse to buy my student one of those cheap Sheaffer fountain pens. (I didn't because I can't afford to act on every whim I have.) Just looking at those Sheaffer pens made me think of my fifth grade teacher, Kevin Ettinger.

            At the beginning of the year, Mr. Ettinger told us we had to get a fountain pen because, if you used two sides of that looseleaf paper, a ballpoint pen would leave too strong an impression on the other side. Not only did we have to get a fountain pen, but we also had to use Sheaffer's "washable blue" ink.

            Dutiful nerd that I was, I went out and bought a fountain pen, fell in love, and haven't wavered in my devotion. In fact, my passion for the fountain pen is one of the most enduring I've ever had – in spite of losses, messes, and ruined nibs. (And keep your unsavory jokes to yourself.)

            Mr. Ettinger used to stand up there in the front of the room, looking cool and sophisticated, pretending to smoke a stick of chalk. Sometimes he'd throw a stick of chalk at somebody to grab their attention or maybe just for the heck of it. Keith Olbermann was in that class, and I vaguely remember him and Mr. Ettinger having conversations that I didn't or couldn't exactly follow; probably they were way over my head. Years later, at one of our reunions, Mr. Ettinger told me he never knew a kid who knew so many statistics about baseball. I have a feeling that middle school wasn't a great experience for Keith (is it for anyone?) in large part due to the limitations of intellect, imagination, and compassion in his peers, but I suspect Mr. Ettinger's enthusiasm for baseball gave Keith some measure of happiness.

            Mr. Ettinger teased me a lot. I would daydream and check out a lot. These days I'd probably be diagnosed as a girl with ADD. He didn't get mad, instead he'd sort of tease me into paying attention. It felt like he liked us. I know he got mad at us, but I can't remember any of those lasting, wounding remarks that some teachers make and that color your feelings about them forever.

            How different things would have been if he had made me feel ashamed of my spaciness. Middle school is not so much about acquiring knowledge as it is about learning skills and about dealing with one's growing independence. It's about the business of withdrawing from one's family and drawing towards one's friends. It's about developing some kind of identity in school. During this time, whether you like or dislike adults other than your parents matters a lot; you need people to model yourself after, people other than your peers who are as messed up as you are.

            I guess I did have a crush on Mr. Ettinger, and when I look back I think about how utterly safe it was to have a crush on him and how kids with developing ideas about relationships need to have crushes on safe people.

            As I proofread and correct this piece with my grown-up fountain pen (manufactured by Pelikan, not Sheaffer), I realize it's not really that a fountain pen makes me remember Mr. Ettinger, it's that a fountain pen, any fountain pen, means something because he introduced me to my first one.

And I will always associate Mr. Ettinger with the wonderful invention of a fountain pen.

Jan Sidebotham