Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.A career defined by a stapler By J. G. Fabiano I remember being scared. Most men and women feel the same when they start a new job. This apprehension is intensified when it is not only a new job but a first job in a profession you've spent the last six years of your life preparing for. I clearly remember my first classroom. The school was old and had a distinct odor all classrooms have. I assume this is because of the hundreds of books that have been opened and closed or maybe the scents of the multitude of students who so desperately wanted to succeed so they could become what they wanted to become. Where ever the smell came from it was now being reinforced by this newest of teachers attempting to do something he always wanted to do. The room was old but clean. I was surprised how shiny the floors were even though they were cracked and discolored. There were twenty or so desks in perfect lines waiting to be assigned students. The walls were remarkable void of any poster, piece of tape or hanging staple. The teacher who inhabited the room before me took down all her memories in order to make room for mine. There was a large desk at the front of the room. Like the walls it was cleaned and made ready for its new tenant. It was aged and had that distinctive smell all teachers are supposed to have due to the thousands of cups of coffee it held and the many brown paper bagged lunches it hid. I spent the next five minutes staring out at the empty desks wondering where this room would take me. I wondered what I would see after my first full year teaching. I was shocked into reality when a bell rang echoing its chime throughout the school because there were few people there to absorb the sound. At that time I didn't realize how hearing the same sound every hour of every day would make it simply disappear. But, the results of the sound would always be the same. One group of people would leave with another group of people entering all with different personalities, aspirations, problems, and opportunities. I would have to be ready to become a part of everyone one of them. It was now time to get ready for my first day. Once again I looked at the bare manila walls that surrounded me. I had brought some posters I purchased throughout my life when I was preparing to do what I was about to do. It was now time to put my brand on my first classroom. But, in order to do that I needed something to attach the pictures to the wall. I looked through my desk and found many of the necessary items needed to teach. I found a black and red pen, scissors, lined paper, a block of graph paper, a permanent marker, stickers, paper clips, and an empty tape dispenser. I was hoping to find a stapler even though at the time I didn't know I wasn't supposed to staple anything to the walls. I walked to the office to ask the secretary where I could find one. I didn't dare ask the principal for like I was when I was a student of another school in another time, I was still afraid to be put in a chair at the other side of the principal's desk. The secretary told me she did not know where I could find one but gave me the directions to a closet where old office supplies died. At the time I laughed, to myself, at her comment until I found the closet and opened it up. There were old books dating before I was born, boxes filled with things I had no idea as to what they were, and a graveyard of broken rulers, meter sticks, scissors, and pencils. Looking through the box I discovered an old beat up gray stapler with no name engraved in it. At first I doubted if it would work. I grabbed two pieces of paper and attempted to fasten them together with my new old machine. To my surprise it worked. I then noticed an old brown box at the far corner of the tomb. I was astonished to find out it was filled with the exact staples that filled the stapler. I thought the supply would last me forever. At the time I didn't know how true it was. The day came and past. I met my first students and discovered they were as apprehensive as me. The days became weeks, which became months, and then became an end of my first year. I carefully took my posters and the work of my students off the wall being very careful not to make too many more holes I made by using my stapler to attach them to the walls. I promised the custodian I would spackle the holes but she told me it was her job and I should just leave it alone. As my days past so did my years. They became decades and evolved into quarter of a century. Everything changed in teaching. Copy machines took the place of methanol run purple copies everyone, including me, loved to smell. Type writers and thermal masters were replaced by computers and printers. I watched my students change every year with new styles of dress and hairdos. I watched me change from wearing a jacket and tie to wearing a plain blue golf shirt. Getting closer to my last day at school I discovered the only thing that did not change was my old gray stapler. I never could purchase any of the staples that fit the machine. I just used the case I discovered in that closet many years ago. My colleagues perpetually complained about how they could never keep a stapler because it always broke and was usually lost. During my career I lost the stapler a few times; once in the ocean, salt marsh, river, behind the school, and even in Boston. My students didn't call me 'Field Trip Fabiano' for nothing but, for some odd reason, I always found it. I guess I should assume it found me. The case of staples is almost empty now. I don't know how many years it has left attaching my students work so it could protect it from being lost. Another year is coming to an end and like the past few years I don't bother taking anything off the wall anymore. The walls have become so old I assume the brown aging posters are all that's left of its structure. I am starting to feel like I did the day before my first year. I am not afraid if I am good enough to teach, I am concerned of what my life will be without teaching. The End.
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