The Great Typo Hunt

by Jeff Deck

  A massive billboard beckoned us to a local tourist trap with BRING YOUR CAMERA’S.

  Bring my camera’s what? My camera’s lens cap? We got off at the exit and circled back, parked close, and walked toward the billboard. A low barbed-wire fence stood between us and the field from which this monstrosity taunted us. We found where the ground rose the highest, and hopped over the fence. Then we crossed the brush, dodging cacti and tromping through stubby, thirsty grass, a sign that it hadn’t rained here in a while. That was agreeable for my purposes, since the only way I could figure to correct this was to cover the black paint with yellow chalk. It’d disappear once the rains came, but for now it would look swell. As I applied the chalk, the apostrophe began to flake away, so I could at least shrink the readability of the gigantic blotch that greeted travelers to Arizona. Satisfied that we’d done some good, we pressed on, and more than a mile up, to Flagstaff.

  Including the grandiose start back on the border, we’d manage to go six for nine for the day, breaking a personal best for typo finds (topping the eight we’d caught in New Orleans). As I moved through Flagstaff’s intimate, frontier-town-like streets, I began to reexamine my ideas from the day before. Here again a town thrived with independent businesses and approachable people who for the most part appreciated our efforts.

  We hit an obstacle or two along the way, of course, like when we caught a typo in neon and I didn’t have any spare glass tubing handy for the rechanneling of inert gases. Flagstaff’s true spirit came out, however, when we spotted mistakes in a sign propped up in the plate-glass window of a greasy-spoon diner. When we brought them up to the server, she thanked us for noticing the errors and seemed grateful that we wanted to fix them ourselves. Her only hesitation was wondering how much we charged for our “service.” I replied that we worked for free, so she happily allowed us to attend to the “strawbery,” “lemonaide,” and “decafinated coffee” on the sign in the window.

  At Benjamin’s urging, I again put my Rocks & Minerals experience to the test at a gem shop. As in Santa Fe, I ended up catching a vowel in distress (“hemitite” rather than hematite, wouldn’t you know), and again I couldn’t keep myself from purchasing something nifty. Benjamin practically bounced as we caught the typos offhandedly, periodic discoveries during our exploration of an authentic community of artists and artisans. “I could live here! I’ve gotta come back with Jenny.”

  We treated ourselves to a nice Italian restaurant, where a kid’s (not kids’!) birthday party sent the sole waiter scurrying to keep up. I, of course, found our ninth error for the day on the menu. When I showed it to Benjamin, he shrugged and said, “We’re eating here. Maybe … we should forget it. I mean,” and here he indicated the table filled with shouting children, “he’s got a lot on his mind already.”

  “No, we’ve got to at least tell him,” I argued, and Benjamin smiled.

  He’d been testing me. “You’re back.”

  I thought he meant my frustration the day before, but he traced its roots back even further. “You went up an employee-only ladder in Austin. I stood on your car to get one in Fort Stockton, right after you made a big X on the side of a building. We’ve gotten bolder, taking on big errors.”

  I saw it immediately. I’d gotten bored with small-fry typos. El Paso hadn’t featured anything big enough to stack up. The constant, lengthy driving and blogging had added to it all, and I’d begun to burn out. Benjamin had noticed it in Albuquerque, of course. We’d stumbled on the Kelly’s/Kelley’s sign, an error a bit too high to correct, and I’d shut down and said forget it. But Benjamin, donkeylike to the end, hadn’t been dragged along on this crazy adventure only to let me abandon it. He’d committed to it somewhere along the line, and he’d charged forward, perhaps fueled by his anger at me for giving up. “Your whole thing yesterday,” he said now, “that would have been an excuse.”

  “But it was a valid point.”

  “That typos are part of small-town character? That’s condescending. Typos aren’t charming. Misspellings are not the source of their independent spirit. These guys are fighting for their lives in a bankroll-obsessed, corporate-leaning America that’s eight years into an administration that gives handouts to the big guys for successfully crushing anything in their paths. You’re not hurting the little guys; you’re helping them by leveling the grammatical playing field.”

  How could I have forgotten that? I’d been trying to define the whys of my mission ever since Jane had asked me at my going-away party. Somewhere along the line I realized that—unfairly or not—stores and their products would be judged by their presentation. That included grammatical correctness. The big-box stores used professionally made (and edited) signs to enhance the visual appeal of their stores. The little guy printed something out and taped it to the tables, walls, or windows. They started out at a disadvantage, but a grammatical error could set them even further behind. No matter how many clichés warn us against it, we are visually oriented creatures, and we do judge the books by their covers. By checking over their signage, we could help the independents ward against negative judgments, perhaps adding a small measure to their perceived legitimacy.

  Meanwhile, even amid my crisis of faith, we’d been getting better at this. The lesson here wasn’t merely about whom to help, but where we could get better hunting done as well. Today we’d found an all-time high. Looking back over the last three and a half weeks, I noticed that our typo finds had been gradually increasing. Before Benjamin had come along, the best I’d managed was three finds in a single day. He’d immediately triggered a four-typo day, and we’d had only one day under three finds since he’d been along. Together we’d redefined what a successful day looked like. During the past four days we’d found twenty-eight typos. So I could stand for a day of refocusing, and what better place than out in the text-free wilds of the Grand Canyon. Thus we decreed we’d attempt a day off. Then I’d return refreshed, and kick off the new hunt with my hundredth typo found.

  TYPO TRIP TALLY

  Total found: 99

  Total corrected: 61

  * A phenomenon that had occurred only once before, in a Subway in remote western Texas. Benjamin and I had physically pursued a fellow whose name tag proclaimed him the “Restaraunt” Manager.

  10 | Over the Edge

  March 28, 2008 (Grand Canyon, AZ)

  Into the House of Stone & Light our undaunted Heroes tread, and in the midst of consumerist pollution at the edge of all things Grand, discover the fabled One Hundredth Typo, one with the power to determine the Leaguers’ fate forevermore.

  Train horns took on an ethereal quality throughout the night, intruding into dreams as a forlorn wail of angels or oceans boiling in an apocalyptic vision. At other times the sharp call of warning jerked me from the absolute blankness—the depths of that well from which we draw the vital energies. A lady at the shops downtown had estimated that five trains pass through Flagstaff per hour, every hour, so figure on at least thirty whistles for the night entire. As a faint glimmer signaled the end of the long darkness, we both sat up. Benjamin mumbled, “The last time I had that much trouble sleeping, my parents were still burping me.” Of course, he’d had the added fun of unrolling his sleeping bag on the hardwood floor. I’d reserved a two-bed hostel room, but I had not, well, gotten one. Benjamin had shrugged it off, saying that he needed to stay tough for the Appalachian Trail. He thought that all the Econo Lodges, along with a few friends’ couches, might be making him soft.

  I rubbed bleary eyes. The dawn cast its roseate light on my camera bag, hanging from a nearby chair. My Typo Correction Kit, still clipped to the camera bag, seemed luminous. One hundred typos, so near at hand. Today would—no! Benjamin had convinced me that I needed a day off, that I’d be a stronger typo hunter for it. My wave of fatigue and doubt had mostly reached its shore, but I should take this day to enjoy the glorious dimensions of the Grand Canyon, be a true tourist, committed to self-indulgence. I could be like everyone else, right? As I fumble
d for a towel and my toiletries bag, I hoped Benjamin had guessed right about the Grand Canyon’s absolute lack of text. It’d be like the Carolina beaches. What text could there be when the splendor of nature spoke in a language free of prepositions and apostrophes? I looked back at the camera bag, which lay innocently where I’d placed it last night, and again felt my eyes drawn toward the Kit. I could separate them. Take the camera but leave the Typo Correction Kit upon the chair. Yet that felt so wrong, and if we stopped in a diner after working up an appetite hiking around and then spotted the One Hundredth Typo, only to be without any tools of the League’s trade …

  The resolution was simple enough. I’d detach the Kit in the car, leaving it handy for any stops after the Canyon visit. I felt strangely unsettled each time I glanced at it, where it remained slung across the back of the chair, almost too still. Like the paintings in haunted mansions with eyes that tracked the cartoon hero. I scooped my accessories up quickly without even looking at them, grabbing the camera and Kit together. We climbed into Callie and, after barely maneuvering her past the overstuffed parking lot and the granola kids using it as their playground, we sailed down the highway for what would be the most consequential typo we’d ever encounter.

  Crucial moments in history often pivot on the smallest details. What if Edward the Confessor had died a few minutes early, before he could promise his throne to Harold, thus precluding William’s need to be a Conqueror, the Battle of Hastings, perhaps even the whole Norman invasion, fully changing the course of the English language? What if Gary Gygax had never thought to pair Dungeons with Dragons?

  I met my own moment of truth in a parking lot, after we arrived at the first viewing area on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

  I turned Callie into the lot and pulled into a back corner space. A sidewalk designated the border between the workings of man (pavement) and the beginning of the natural world (some grass and rocks). A little trash can stood on the sidewalk for our convenience. We planned to return to the car for peanut butter sandwiches, so this seemed perfect. Benjamin and I emerged from the car, turned toward the Canyon, and together stood and stared, awestruck—and not by nature’s grandeur.

  The parking lot had filled like any humdrum lot in front of a mall or grocery store. Everyone had crowded to the front. Now, I don’t doubt there were a few older folks in the throng who hoped to see all they could with a minimum of cardiac exertion. Those folks aside, it struck us as strange that at a park where the main purpose was to wander around and take in the sights, a place where, besides gawking, the only thing that you could really do was walk, everyone had parked as close as possible. The reasons for parking so close eluded me. No one would have an armful of groceries to bring back from the canyon. Was it an automatic behavior, so deeply ingrained that finding the closest spot had replaced just finding a space in many minds? Benjamin commented on it before I did. “Herd instinct to corral together? My dad told me a story about getting somewhere early—I mean first-in-the-parking-lot early—and parking off to the side to read. Not up at the front spaces near the doors. Next car comes in parks in the very next space beside him, for no reason at all.”

  I turned back to Callie and reached in for my camera. I touched the carabiner clip that linked the Kit and camera. The moment slowed, as if the wilds had cast their atemporal magic over me, and I had eons to contemplate my identity. The fact that I’d parked so far away from everyone else, that I hadn’t thought anything of walking the extra few yards to get to the Canyon, made me feel distinct and alone. Not in a bad, us-versus-them way, but not in a good, I’m-proud-of-my-uniqueness way either. I had merely come to a point of recognizing my Jeffness. In that moment of recognition, detaching the Typo Correction Kit seemed a blasphemous act, a retreat from myself. I could not escape my calling. Jeff Deck had become an editor, and editing had entwined itself in Jeff Deck’s nature. I touched the brim of my hat unconsciously and lowered the strap gently down around me, and once the camera and Kit had settled to their rightful place at my side, worn like a rapier to be easily drawn in a moment of need, time returned to normal, and Benjamin bounded forward.

  Through the parking lot, down to where the sidewalk truly ends, we came at last to the Grand Canyon, a testament to the persistence of erosion. The Colorado River has rolled on for six million years without a vacation day or off-season. Its tireless dedication to carving away rock could give even Iron Man Ripken pause (and should make Sisyphus wonder why he hadn’t thought of that). The thing about the Grand Canyon that it took me a moment to understand was that I couldn’t see it all. I mean, your first impression is Wow, that’s pretty big. Then you look off in another direction, and the inexpressible beauty of shadow and light, sharp angles and smooth slopes, and contrasting colors covering a startling range of the spectrum make you fall into the scene (but not physically into the Canyon, if you’re lucky). Then funny things happen to your vision as you try to make your eyes zoom in on particular features and patches of color that yank your attention around, jerking your head from here to there, and your depth perception and perspective go all out of whack. So Benjamin, meanwhile, is gazing out to the distance, trying to get a handle on the proportions. That’s when the fact—that this is merely one viewing point among many along the rim, not to mention the rim opposite—sinks in, and intellectually collected factoids succumb to the natural reality. The Grand Canyon is so enormous that it’s impossible to see it. To view the whole phenomenon in its entirety, you’d have to be so high above it that all definition and detail would be lost to you. I knew about bacteria and nanobots and other infinitesimally small things, but I’d never once thought something could be so big as to be equally invisible to the naked eye. I thought back to Galveston, where I’d observed people focusing too narrowly and missing the larger picture. Now I felt more sympathy for them.

  For a bit of extra height, which somebody for some reason had thought would be helpful, the South Rim featured a faux Native American watchtower. The Park Service had commissioned its construction in the 1930s, crafting sandstone and rubble and steel into a giant imitation of Anasazi towers, as if local peoples had used it to gaze soulfully out over the Canyon for centuries. It was, in fact, on the registry of National Historic Landmarks, though we didn’t realize that at the time. Benjamin and I went inside, where I was jarred by an abrupt switch from unsullied vista to capitalist hunger for the contents of my wallet, as the bottom floor was a gift shop. I could have sworn we’d passed a gift shop near the parking lot, too. The idea of so many trinket purveyors populating what I’d naïvely assumed would be a meditation on Earth’s raw delights made me dizzy, dizzier even than when I later peered down from a ledge. Somehow we wended our way around the gnashing teeth with our pants pockets intact. Before ascending the stairway to higher levels of the watchtower, I turned momentarily from our spectating goal. Though there wasn’t much text in here, I couldn’t help but examine it now. Since my hopes for a text-free zone had been dashed, since I knew now that not even the Grand Canyon could stand as a last bastion of the world without our interference, I figured I might as well interfere. Nothing amiss that I could see, though, so we left the postcards and T-shirts and other gewgaws behind.

  Up the first flight of stairs we went, the needy roar of the gift shop still echoing in our ears, when I saw it for the first time.

  A little chalkboard sign greeted us, leaning at an angle to catch the eye of everyone coming up the stairs, ready to explain the significance of the Desert View Watchtower, built in the 1930s. Benjamin admired the artwork adorning the walls and noted the slightly narrower staircase that ran along the wall to get us to the next level.

  Meanwhile, I’d noticed a typo. No, I’d noticed two on this thing. I pointed out “emense” for immense and “womens’” (a Filene’s Basement classic) for women’s.

  One hundred typos. We’d done it. I’d found one hundred typos so far on this trip, and even when I’d meant to take a day off, here I’d continued the streak of no typol
ess days since I’d started on the quest. I pointed the problems out to Benjamin, who finally turned his attention from the upper levels (this level had no roof per se) to read the sign. The question, however, was, were we going to correct it now that we’d found it? “Can we put that off for a moment?” Benjamin requested. “I have a confession.”

  Benjamin is afraid of heights. As a small child this had kept him from going up on those taller outlooks at amusement parks and forced him to refuse the chance to go up into the Empire State Building. Eventually he’d struck back against the fear. He started climbing trees when camping and then made himself go up, shaking legs and all, to those greatest heights at amusement parks, even letting a trusted friend drag him onto the roller coasters (which he instantly loved). He’d never gotten over his fear, but he would actively charge forward against it. He had to do it that way, charging forward. He couldn’t stand here waiting to go up. I didn’t think we’d be getting all that high up, but the height wasn’t the main factor. The layout of the tower was. You’d go up a narrow staircase along the curved edge, windows conveniently placed to let you know that you weren’t just high up inside the building, but exceedingly high above the Colorado’s millennia of carvings. The lack of floors/ceilings in the upper rooms, where you climbed in an outer ring from one staircase to another, gave you nowhere to look to pretend you were back on level ground. Once you began going up, you committed yourself to the vertical reality of the situation. So we went in haste, Benjamin promising we’d decide about correcting the sign after we’d played tourists for a spell. The windows proved to be the worst part, but Benjamin made it up level by level to the top floor, a small cage of thick plastic windows. Heavy binocular machines blocked an otherwise appealing view through those full-length windows, offering (for a mere quarter) whole seconds of in-depth scouting. I didn’t want to see small bits of it clearer. I wanted to see the whole breadth better. These infernal devices stirred me into a defenestrating mood, but alas the windows were too thick and the machines too heavy even if they hadn’t been bolted down. Also, I didn’t want to pollute the Grand Canyon with large hunks of metal. We headed back down rapidly and decided we’d best experience the Canyon back outdoors—where it actually existed and where we belonged.