I Kill Trees

When the computer clock reads 11:27 I have one goal--a clean agate page. (For most of you who are A. not working for pennies and B. not newspaper nerds it's enough to know that I do the dirty work for the sports desk.) And at 11:35, after the first run, I'm humiliated at red ink smeared across the proof. Love that chaser deadline which cleans up my page and means only a few lucky souls get to laugh at the genius arranging prep scores the next morning.

Today to honor Earth Day I attempted to lay off the paper, to make my corrections while staring at the computer screen. The problem came when my tired eyes began to itch (I blame weird computer graphics and lighting). The problem increased as I began scrolling and skipping large sections. On paper I go line by line as taught in kindergarten. In the tech world I believe in short-cuts, unfortunately they fail me more often than I'd like.

The solution glared me in my principled eyes—print I must, as many copies as necessary for that perfect page. I felt a pang in my heart for everything arboreal. It lasted a couple minutes and increased in intensity when I thought about the episodes of the day. I’d been using exorbitant amounts of paper towels and tissue all day.

I’d washed my hands after every sneeze. No, not just my sneezes but the 53 sneezes of my students, plus the paper towels used to wash their hands and the double and triple layers of tissue to help them blow their noses and protect my hands. And once, maybe twice, I just watched as a child threw away an used paper towel.

The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle poster of youth flashed through my head. Briefly. I cleared my desk and tossed out the stack of paper I’d used in the past five hours. Happy Earth Day, I killed trees.