Why Michigan? Why not?

Go Blue...

During my senior year of college I had regular meetings with my unofficial life coach. My future, which had once seemed so clear and straight-forward, was now completely open-ended, and I just needed someone to talk things through with.

“What do you want to do?” he would ask me.

“Well, I think I want to edit books… in the long run…”

“Well, what is your number one concern?”

“I don’t want to move back to Eureka.”

This was my biggest fear. That I would get stuck. Don’t get me wrong; I love my hometown. I just think it would be a dead end for me. Not saying it’s that way for everyone; I have plenty of friends with great jobs and great lives in Eureka… I just don’t think I could really thrive there.

And so I applied to dozens of publishing jobs during my last semester of college. They were all over the place – New York, Boston, Chicago, Oregon, Florida, and I think I even applied to a couple in England and Australia.

My good friend Julianne and I had a dream of moving to New York together (okay, we still do). It was a simple plan, really:

1. Get jobs in New York.

2. Find an apartment.

3. Go out every weekend and mingle with wealthy businessmen.

I even looked at apartments in New York. “Let’s live near Central Park!” she suggested. It was a plan.

It was about March when, after not being contacted by a single company I had applied to (aside from the occasional “we have received your application” email), that I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was technically qualified for all the jobs I applied to, but honestly, I didn’t have a chance with Simon & Schuster, Random House, McGraw Hill, Hearst Magazines… I was reaching for the stars, which is a good thing, but I had no real backup plan.

So May came, and it was time for graduation. When people asked me what I was doing with my life, I had to tell them the truth, which I had finally come to accept: “I’m moving back to Eureka for probably just a year. Going to work, save some money, then get a job, move somewhere…”

I put it off for as long as I could. After graduation I stayed in San Diego for another week. Then I stayed with Julianne in San Jose for a week and a half. Then after going to Eureka for a few days I went back to the Bay Area. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I lived there now. I applied to a few jobs in Eureka, but I was spending so much time elsewhere that I didn’t invest much time into the job search.

A little over a month after my college graduation I was sitting at home with my friend Hannah, who was going to the University of Michigan for grad school in the fall. Half-jokingly, one of us said something about me looking for jobs in Ann Arbor. My laptop was right there, so I went onto a couple job boards and applied to a couple of editorial jobs.

The next day I left for Africa, and it was while on that mission trip that I really decided that I needed to move away from Eureka. I love new people and new places, and that is precisely what I cannot find in my hometown. So, on the drive back from the San Francisco airport, I told my parents: “I think I’m going to move to Michigan.”

A week later I had a room in a house. I signed the lease and began searching for jobs. Before I arrived in Michigan, I had three job interviews lined up. The first one, at a café a few blocks away from my house, was less than 12 hours after I arrived in Ann Arbor.

So now I have a new home. I’m in a house with new roommates, in a city with new faces, and I work at a café with people who have become my new friends. It’s an adventure. It may not be my typical adventure, but it’s still new and exciting… and I really think that life isn’t about your circumstances—whether you live in San Diego or Ann Arbor, whether you’re an editorial assistant for Random House or a barista at Glass House Café, you get out of life whatever you put into it.

Remembering Dale

“Have you voted yet, Abby?” Dale asked as I walked into class on Election Day.

I told him I hadn’t and gave him my excuses, but he shook his head in disappointment. He wasn’t as disappointed as he made himself out to be, though. Dale was never completely serious. Every Tuesday and Thursday night when the 20 or so students straggled into our 6:00pm Editing class, Dale made as many jokes as he could, all at our expense. However, none of us minded being teased by Dale; he was almost like a father figure.

At the end of the night, as we all packed up to leave a little before 7:15 (Dale usually let us out a little bit early. He once told me it was just for me: he wanted to make sure I didn’t miss any of Glee.), Dale addressed me as I walked out the side door.

“Abby, there’s still time for you to hit the polls!”

Being college students, we, of course, all heard “poles” rather than “polls.” What was Dale suggesting I spend my Tuesday night doing? A couple friends and I glanced at each other, trying to figure out what our professor was insinuating.

“Oh!” I realized after a minute. “The election polls!”

Another day, it just happened to be Brenda’s birthday, the phone rang in the middle of class.

“All the years I’ve taught in this classroom, the phone has never rung once,” Dale said as he walked to the back of the room.

“Hello?” we heard him say as he picked up the phone.

“No, Brenda cannot come out and play.”

“I’m sorry; we’re in class right now. Good bye.”

We were all very confused, Brenda probably the most. We asked Dale who had just called, and he wouldn’t tell us for a minute. After more prodding, though, he finally told us what had happened.

“There was no one there; it was a dial tone.”

I guess it’s fitting that a professor of Editing would always keep us on our toes. As we sat in class editing stories, he would sneak up behind us. At times I would be glued to the computer screen, feel a presence behind me, and turn to see Dale’s face right over my shoulder. He made Kimi scream a few times.

There are so many more stories I could tell about Dale. Every day we spent with him, he was an endless source of entertainment. Except for the last day of class.

I was rushing to class because I was about five minutes late. Dale wouldn’t care, but I still felt bad. I was late because my roommate had just done my hair so that I had a braid starting in the back of my head and looping around behind my ear. I was surprised when I reached the classroom and found the entire class standing outside. Dale was always there before us.

A student with an iPhone checked to see if he had sent an email; he hadn’t. We waited for probably another ten minutes. There is a rule that students are allowed to leave if a professor is a certain number of minutes late, but none of us would want to miss out on Dale’s class.

He finally walked into the building. He looked weak and pale.

“Nice hair,” he said to me as he let us into the classroom. He then said he had to go to the bathroom. We all stared at each other, wondering what was wrong. My seat was closest to the door, and five minutes later when he came back, I saw him attempt to open the door, but then stop for a minute. He looked dizzy and lightheaded. The door was heavy, but he had never had a problem with it before.

That day he taught us with a straight face. There was no chatter among the students. We couldn’t really pay attention, though. We were all on Google Chat, messaging each other:

“What is wrong with Dale?”

“=(”

“Look, he is wearing a hospital bracelet.”

Dale didn’t make any jokes as we all said goodbye.

We found out later that he had had a blood clot in his heart. The next week, which was our finals week, he had a quintuple bypass surgery.

The last email Dale sent us, on the morning of that last class period, said:

“Tis sad…but tonight is our last class before the final. So bring crying towels in addition to your TOYS story.”

Little did we know that we really would need crying towels, but not until the next month when we went to his memorial service.

I think of Dale Fetherling every time I use my AP Stylebook or see a Welsh Corgi (my favorite dog, and also the breed of Dale’s dog, Wink). As I pursue a career in editing, I know that no one has helped me as much as Dale, and I just hope I can be as fun and quirky of an editor as he was.