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My Claims to Fame

Antique manual typewriter isolated on whiteMy claims to fame in high school were that I drove a boat to school and that I typed all my notes.

The first made me cool – the second made me nerdy. So I suppose they sort of balanced me out.

Living on the California side of Lake Havasu at Havasu Palms, I took a 12-mile (round trip) boat ride each school day – beginning in my sophomore year. A friend who lived with my family for a portion of my sophomore year shared the boat ride with me, but for most of the time, it was a solo run.

My boating adventures included numerous engine failures – being caught in storms – once I sunk the boat (okay, I did make it to shore, but it was going down fast) – and once I rescued a drowning man (okay, he wasn’t drowning exactly; he had foolishly put an engine on his canoe, and when I found him his canoe had capsized and he was precariously holding onto the tip of the craft in frigid water).

As for the notes – those were typed on an old red Royal typewriter my grandfather had given me. The keyboard – now attached to a computer instead of typewriter — remains my preference over pen and paper. Had laptops been invented back when I was in high school, then perhaps the typing thing wouldn’t have seemed so nerdy.