Mr. Fitz,

I remember the evening in September when Anna and I stayed late, photocopying the first school newspaper. It was weird and kind of beautiful, all those rows of closed lockers, fluorescent lights humming through the halls. We owned the school that night, laughing at ourselves as long sheets slid out of the copier with our clip art, fortune cookie messages, advice columns and inside jokes, cut and drawn and typed and glue-sticked together by our own hands.

You gave us an office that year, with a desk and a drop box for articles, a tack board and a Mac. Anna bought a coffee maker and I bought a goldenrod bar fridge. We even had a toaster that I found in my parent's attic. We couldn't get over it. We started getting to school a little early just to be there, eating toast and looking at each other.

And you'd come in, chewing a pen, brown suit pants wrinkled and dandruff falling from your shock of downy hair. You'd smile to the floor, read over our shoulders, tell us not to drop crumbs on the copier. You loved us. You even shared the office with us. Was it your office? That just occurred to me now.

But we were on our own that night, listening to indie rock from our walkman speakers and eating carrot sticks when the toner jammed. There was black powder everywhere and we just couldn't stop laughing, sticking our heads into the machine, blowing on hot cogs, trying somehow to sweep it up. We shook the drum, pushed every button, sweet talked and flirted, but nothing worked. We finally sat back to strategize, our fingers leaving black prints on our tuna sandwiches. Should we call you? The idea of a phone ringing in your house was inconceivable and hilarious. What if your wife picked up? What would she sound like? Would you be angry?

You arrived an hour later in a forest green sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and somehow we held back our giggles until you had left. You fixed it. You fixed so many things that year. And we went on, got 500 papers printed and folded before the last city bus pulled away with us in it. And the next day the hallways were filled with people holding our work, reading our words, laughing at our jokes and we knew but couldn't say it–that something big had changed that day, that year, our bold and frightened voices cut and pasted into all those hands. And I guess that maybe what I'm trying to say here is that we loved you too. More than you could possibly know.

~ Chris