Retired teacher rewrites his journey

Jim Utt has uneven crow’s feet.

The wrinkles on one side of his eyes are deeper and more pronounced than the other, proof that he’s spent a lifetime bemused with a crooked, easy grin.

At 68, the retired teacher and widow has earned his stripes, weathering a lifetime of precocious high school students but more recently surviving the premature death of his wife in the summer of 2013.

As a part-time writer, he has openly discussed the impact of his wife’s passing but also explored his general observations about living in Laguna Beach for the last 15 years. He co-founded a writer’s group, Third Street Writers (www.facebook.com/ThirdStreetWriters) and will increase the frequency of his columns to the Laguna Beach Independent.

Utt is one of those rare people who immediately disarms you with self-effacing, dry humor. When I called him recently, I casually opened the conversation with, “How are you doing?”

“I’m OK — a heart problem, but I take a lot of medication,” he said.

I laughed out loud but then wondered. Should I be laughing at his heart problem?

But that’s what makes it funny.

You can understand why he was a favorite teacher at El Toro High School, chalking up high marks and awards. His primary focus was contemporary issues, so he used Newsweek magazine as his textbook.

“My students never knew where I stood on a particular issue,” he said. “I presented not my own views; I just challenged views.”

Utt was raised in a lively political family, which was not always easy. He is the grandson of an outspoken conservative Republican, U.S. Rep. James B. Utt from Tustin.

“I grew up in a very conservative household,” Utt said. “When I became a liberal, I was put in the weeds section of the family tree.”

Despite his history, however, Utt stays largely removed from politics, preferring to take more nuanced, academic approaches to his daily life.

He likes to sprinkle his conversation with quotes from other writers and thinkers — not to impress anyone but because the sayings are a good fit at the right time.

When discussing contemporary life, for example, he mentioned Sherry Turkle, a professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who wrote that we need to reclaim the art of conversation in the digital age.

“The art of conversation is the most important thing and we’re losing it,” Utt said. “I went into a restaurant in Laguna, an upscale restaurant, and I saw people on dates not talking to each other but having their cellphones out. I’m kind of a neo-Luddite in that regard.”

Utt saw the same pattern in high school before he retired.

“Now, students have so many other things in their lives to distract them from school, not just jobs but social media and so many activities,” he said. “I think we have lost something because of the shortened attention span. People don’t sit down and read anymore, hardly at all.”

And if people are reading, it’s only blithe, Internet headlines and click-bait — usually because of some inane photo. All of this is “crazy talk,” Utt said, and “young people are susceptible to that.”

To emphasize the point, Utt pulled out another quote from memory.

“I always use a quote by H.L. Menken: ‘Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.’”

This lack of depth and connection is something he wants to try to avoid with his work at the writer’s group. While artists have significant support in the community, writers are not as represented.

“We’re trying to build up a writing community,” he said. “We just got a nonprofit status, and our mission is to support the written word in Laguna because most of the support tends to go to paintings.”

In the meantime, Utt is happy to simply collect his ideas and see where they go. He’s learned not to get too far ahead of himself.

Because today is good enough, especially in Laguna.

“When we moved here from Irvine, it was like that part in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ that changed from black and white to color, going from the sterile, planned community of Irvine to this more tight-knit community. That’s really something that I think makes Laguna the nicest place to live in Orange County.

“Where do I think Laguna is headed? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just going to comment on the journey.”

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DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.