Last week I was thinking about high school - not because it was the bestest time of my life, or because I was Prom Queen! - and my favorite teacher. The one who papered the walls of his classroom with photos of people, who raged against the townpeople in "The Scarlet Letter," who hung up a tie-dyed-superhero-cape-wearing sock puppet that one AV and I made; the one who strode around the glass-walled aquarium of a classroom delivering lines from The Tempest and Fences, who let us keep the couch - Bruce - in the yearbook office years after the school deemed it a fire hazard.
Who once let the AV and I "borrow" a blank book of pre-signed hall passes - fifty of them - so that we could work on the yearbook way past the bell ringing and skip to our next class late and excused. Who said that he'd learn to play the piano after his retirement, and did. Who listened to me rage against the idiotic workings of Jostens, even though I was a seventeen-year-old idiot myself. Who lent me, on "perma-loan," a copy of Slaughterhouse V, the first thing I ever read that blew the top of my head off.
Who would walk into the yearbook office, gaze at all the people lounging on the couch doing nothing/drawing a maze in permanent marker on a table that was official property of WNHS/eating Pizza Hut Big New Yorker pizza/playing Doom, and kick those people out - and then rescind his threat once I assured him that yes, they were working, and yes, I needed them around me, even though I was the *only* one mucking around with layouts and picas. Who was the only one in the entire class who laughed at the ridiculous eleven-minute video - Responsibility Woman! woman! woman! - that his two dorky sophomores, AV and yours truly, turned in for his junior-level English course, while we hung our heads in embarassment and the rest of the bad-ass juniors smirked.
Who I'd been thinking about lately, wanting to write a note thanking him for the two years that taught me writing, reading, priorities, and what it meant to be a wonderful teacher.
Who passed away on Friday.
You and me both, X.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird, my brother and I were actually talking about his class on Sunday. High school would have been very different without someone to advocate for our cynical smart asses.
I'll call in a bit if you're around.
It says I didn't comment, but I clearly commented. Oh well.
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