RUGator

Just when I needed it, I received this from a parent of one of my students:

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of

school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked

at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was

impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a

little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did

not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he

constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got

to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his

papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big ‘F’ at

the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each

child’s past records and she put Teddy’s off until last. However, when she

reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy’s first grade teacher wrote, ‘Teddy is a bright child with a ready

laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners… he is a joy to be

around..’

His second grade teacher wrote, ‘Teddy is an excellent student, well liked

by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal

illness and life at home must be a struggle.’

His third grade teacher wrote, ‘His mother’s death has been hard on him.

He tries to do his best, but his father doesn’t show much interest, and his

home life will soon affect him if some steps aren’t taken.’

Teddy’s fourth grade teacher wrote, ‘Teddy is withdrawn and do esn’t show

much interest in school. He doesn’t have many friends and he sometimes

sleeps in class.’

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself.

She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents,

wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy’s. His

present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a

grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the

other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a

rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was

one-quarter full of perfume.. But she stifled the children’s laughter when she

exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the

perfume on her wrist. Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough

to say, ‘Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to.’

After the children left, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day,

she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to

teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she

worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged

him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of

the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love

all the children the same, Teddy became one of her ‘teacher’s pets..’

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her

that she was the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.

Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote

that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still

the best teacher he ever had in life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things

had been tough at times, he’d stayed in school, had stuck w ith it, and would

soon graduate from college with the highest of honours. He assured Mrs.

Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had

in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he

explained that after he got his bachelor’s degree, he decided to go a

little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite

teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer…. The letter

was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that

spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He

explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was

wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place

that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of course, Mrs.

Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several

rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume

that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.

They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear,

‘Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making

me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference.’

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back.. She said, ‘Teddy,

you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a

difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.’

(For you that don’t know, Teddy Stoddard is the Dr at Iowa Methodist in

Des Moines that has the Stoddard Cancer Wing.)

Warm someone’s heart today. . . pass this along. I love this story so very

much, I cry every time I read it. Just try to make a difference in

someone’s life today? tomorrow? just ‘do it’.

Random acts of kindness, I think they call it!

‘Believe in Angels, then return the favor

What women say: “I did three loads of laundry, shuttled the kids back and forth to school and practice, made dinner, paid bills, and went grocery shopping.”

What men hear: “hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

What woman ask: “How was your day.”

What men answer: “Fine.”

What men think: “I just conducted open heart surgery on a paraplegic, wolverine while singing the second verse of “Sewanne River,” riding a unicycle backwards.”

I’m having a particularly hard time with this photo tonight.

That’s me, third from the left. Surrounded (and protected?) by friends I’ve known since 1978. They came up to visit over the summer. On the far left, is our 9th grade football coach. I hadn’t seen him in over 30 years.

What do I do with all of this? I’m not sure if it’s the idea of time passing or the missing it part. Tough to process.

Things are good. Teaching is great. Love my children.

But I get overcome with emotion sometimes (a lot of the time). When it comes to the struggle between my heart and head, the heart wins out. Every time.

I guess I wouldn’t want things to be different. I’m an up and down person. Feeling the pain and the joy. No in-between. Not much grey.

Just too much black and white.

For me it’s about once a month.

And that’s enough.

A migraine headache and its curse.

They haunt me. Always just on the horizon. Lurking. Waiting to take a few days from me. Usually it’s some combination of lack of sleep, not eating the right foods in the right amounts at the right times, and changes in the weather.

Barometric fluctuations (usually from high pressure to low pressure, i.e., “good weather” to “bad weather”) are my nemeses. Today, in the northeast, I faced my body’s perfect storm.

So I came home from the golf course (where I caddy and don’t play), loopless after a five hour rain induced wait, with the onset of a migraine.

Into a hot shower (running the water via shower massage on my temples) and into bed.

Migraine sufferers know too well the other “pain” of these headaches. Trying to convince your beleaguered family that you’re again under its spell. They often just don’t understand. It’s so frustrating.

To myself (and after having to hear about “another headache” from mama bear), I mused, “What would I like to do on this fine day? Let’s see. Relax with my family and perhaps watch some football or crawl under the covers with ice on my head and my brain pounding away pleading for sleep? I think I’ll opt for the latter. Just because. Yeah, that’s what I’d rather do.”

And now, hours later, I feel as though I spent the previous night losing a quarters match with some 27 year old German Octoberfest guzzling triathlete named Sven.

Tomorrow the weather clears. But I’ll be forced to play catch up with this curse’s after effects.

This man had saved his life, which was something; but, further, he was the ideal master. Other men saw to the welfare of their dogs from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them (“gas” he called it) was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck’s head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck’s, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling him ill names that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, “God! you can all but speak!”

–from The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Flown in from some phantasm and contrasted against the melancholy grey clouds of another Valley like black-cloaked Bedouins on the white sands of the Sahara, came forth the Order. For payment on a line of credit signed by their own hands. Trying to get it right.

With sect-like stature amongst its devotees, The Order of the Horn wrested itself out from beneath the sand scrub fields like some flushed out springtime worm; its membership capped at inception.

And now that the deed’s been done, I don’t know what to do with it. Walking the thin line between friendly embellishment and doing it justice. Wishing I could expand the time we were engaged; knowing right from the start (we even acknowledged it), that it’d be gone in an instant.

Just cut my heart out.

Go ahead and cut it right out of my chest. Cut it out and and just stomp on it.

Might as well.

One: The Mentor. Scratch the surface, and you’d unearth an Orange and Blue before the Treys and Ashelys of Madison Avenue perverted its pill with a callous disregard for historic preservation. Like the others from Neptune Beach, Clewiston, and The Devil’s Milhopper he was a pure breed from the Dickey, Graves, and Pell lineage. He might have been one of Shug’s Plainsmen or perhaps even a Junkyard Dawg. Didn’t matter. Make much difference. He’d outwork you. You do that when you’re from the outside looking in. Not quite good enough. Come up just a yard short. Wait ’till the next year that hadn’t come. Wouldn’t come. Else the story’s end would change. No Hollywood Urban legend here. This was old school. Gimme some Skoal and Turkey and I’ll meet you inside Florida Field (sans Ben Hill Griffin).

He rode in on the Chandler, Reaves, Galloway, Brantley, Hutchinson, and Little steed. It’s all he had.

Given no choice; they’d do. Would be his alter egos on the Sandlewood back lot of his boyhood field of dreams. And he could state with certainty that in Athens and on The Plains was aroused in him the hardened reality that but for some cruel Mephistophelean geographical anomaly, he’d been spared the fate that would forever shackle him to a life he wouldn’t alter for even a sniff of the non chalance that could have been his. That’d be too easy. He had a chip on his shoulder. Gotta want it. Have some pride about yourself. And quite frankly, he was glad for it. Kept it honest. Run hard, run scared. “Oh, look at the sugar falling from the sky! Look at the Sugar falling from the sky!”

And he was just one. And he taught us things. Like caring, pride, and of course, the health benefits of liver.

Two: The Brain. Born as some sort of anachronistic Old Hickory and hamstrung with that same unholy triumvirate of acumen, lack, and tenacity. Back then (in the Valley of our collective youths), he could have gone on to a life of mediocrity. Mailed it in. Become beige. And no one would have blamed him. Cared. He had the built in excuses. Dragging for wayward balls in some non-descript Vedra lagoon (“hush, hush. Here comes T-hop”). For McDonald’s Monopoly tokens? Or maybe even a Big Mac. Take what you can. What was it that would drive him? Carry him forward even after having been dealt an unplayable hand (lie?). Plying his nascent wares on the grasses of Thousand Oaks and the “not so” Tru-Courts of The Fountains, there was an internal boil which festered unnoticed to those outside of The Know.

But he knew.

And so did The Heart.

He knew too because he had returned his serve. Had been on the receiving end of the chip-in par at dusk which squared the match. The dawn’s dusk. When all they had was an eccentric set of unmatched clubs and beat up, cat-gut Donnay rackets, handed down from club members who had no use for them (or maybe filched out of an unknowing locker). Two parts of a whole. And they’d go on in later years, fighting battles within (and without) trying to make some sense too. Just like I’m doing now.

It was the trip to Tallahassee that probably was to blame.

Gone off to Boy’s State to return to Man’s Country armed only with the standard issued tee-shirt and a roll of quarters (spending money from the sending VFW post). Hearing the Great One speak about commitment, integrity, and hard work. Didn’t have to tell him. Just an affirmation of the storm already burning inside. Some shoeless Guatamalan boys and girls thirty years later grateful for Bowden’s speech and quarters collected from grizzled ex-GI’s.

Three: The Dealmaker. He was the one with the heart of gold. A shirt off his back riverboat gambler. What was his was yours. Nothing less then; today. Rolling the dice. Winning more than losing (like a Mark Twain tale gone awry). Riding on the back of his motorized bike, he took me with him. Gained me access to places I had no right to be because that was what he was about. Showed me that the other half wasn’t as whole as I had been led to believe (they had bad breath, could lay a deuce, and left hair in the sinks too). The Rec-Room of youth. Matches in hand. You were one of his. And I was grateful. Indebted. And perhaps, he never even knew. A big man then; bigger man now. Could give him your keys and carte blanche. Good night Irene, that dog will walk. With a hearty laugh that belied an even heartier heart, he knew no bounds. In all things. And as I write these words now, I wonder how much’ll find its way home.

Four: Finally, The Heart. Equal parts broken and mended; wending his way back and forth on some self-imposed journey of reconciliation; stage right in his mind’s eye. Saw those orange helmets back when the snow covered the ground of some disguised northwestern Jersey town kept him physically inside. That was ‘77 and in El Paso’s Sun Bowl was unleashed his burden.

They’d take a trip along the Valley side of A1A in an attempt to find his father’s dreams which, while never fulfilled, would nonetheless open other doors. Doors to his dreams which lie latent yet primed for torment. And those same dreams would begin to manifest themselves on University Avenue, on the banks of the old Raritan, and even on some open yard in Central Park. In a whiffle ball game played three decades later. During a ruse that would bring them all back to the time when Rams roamed free. And the Order of the Horn could assemble once more.

Can ya hit a lick, Yankee?

The second time I heard those words, we were on the practice field. Football practice in my 9th grade year.

He had asked me the same question earlier in the day. In school. Wearing jeans and sneakers, I certainly didn’t think I was prepared to act the part. But I’d practice anyway.

And I’d be covered with sand spurs afterward. We all were. Rolling around in Florida’s sandy soil, we couldn’t help but be.

I wasn’t alone in my ill-equipment. Eddie had actually shown up barefoot. His feet, more like paws, would resemble bloody stumps when practice was finished.

And the man was a Gator.

A Florida Gator. But he seemed more like a prematurely old Alabaman from another era. He called us things like “hairy dogs” and told us “we made him sick to his stomach” when we messed up. Gators don’t talk like that. He sounded more like a Bear. The Bear.

And, while I didn’t know it at the time, this was his first teaching and coaching job. And he was only in his twenties.

We (they) called him “Coach,” which was new to me. I had always called my “gym” teachers (now “P.E.” teachers) “Mr.”

He wore “slaps” and “tennis shoes,” drank “tea,” pulled his car off into the “breakdown lane,” sneaked a peak at a “high steppin’ filly,” “tore it up” on the dance floor, and “cut off” the lights before going to bed at night.

It was another world.

In another time.

“When you’re a Gator and a Scarlet Knight, you just keep choppin.’ You just keep choppin.’”

After thirty years, those were the new first words out of his mouth. And nothing else had to be said.

Now we were both Gators. And me too, a Rutgers man.

My first coach.

And I didn’t know what to do. Still not sure, what, if anything, I’m supposed to do. With the time, that is. The time. Time gone by. Time today.

How do you explain one year out of the past thirty standing out? How can one year of my life be so etched in my heart?

I don’t know what to do about it.

Middle school and junior high are big years for students. I know because I teach them today. It’s the end of an era for them. For me too. They go on to high school upon graduation. The same awaited me. But then we moved. To Florida. From New Jersey. Leaving behind my dear friends, it wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

My father and I went first. My mom, sister, and brother would stay behind and sell the house. Settling in a “mobile home” (until we built the house that would never be built), it was quite a change. Plus, it was summer. No school. No chance to meet (even by coercion) new friends. So I’d go (every day) to the school’s outside basketball courts and shoot baskets. Hoping that someone would show up. But no one ever did. I played alone. Alone with the sand sprinkled on the cement surface. It was Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley before there was “the Island Green” of the 17th at Sawgrass. And it was foreign to me.

I would dream about all the games my winning shots would claim for the team (and school) I’d star for. I’ve got no left hand. I’ve got to get a left hand. Otherwise, I won’t be good enough. Does anyone see me? Will anyone know me? Will I make the team? Who’s the coach? The players?

Can ya hit a lick, Yankee?

He’s still with me.

Just staying afloat has been difficult enough. Making it to the other shore?

That’s another matter.

Mrs. Polovina was handing back our anatomy tests. She made a point of telling the class that most of us had done a lousy job.

“Most of you failed,” she said. “I’m very disappointed in these scores.”

Making my way up the long aisle to get mine, I readied myself for a red “F.” Instead, a “C” brought a bit of a relieved grin to my face.

Turning around to walk back to my seat, my steps were halted by her call of, “Just a minute, Michael.”

“What’s the matter,” I asked.

“Your grade?” she questioned.

“I got a C. Most of the class failed, you said.”

“Yes,” she quietly affirmed, “but I expect more from you.”

And almost thirty years later, I would find my role reversed.

Sitting down next to me, Alyssa had her head down. One of my most reliable students, she had just finished her test. “I know I didn’t do very well, Mr. C,” she announced with a tear streaming down her cheek.

An 86.

“Not your best effort?”

And so I recounted my 11th grade anatomy test story knowing too, that that same message Mrs. Polovina had relayed to me so many years ago, would have a similar effect on this future teacher.

I heard the most wonderful definition of a cynic the other day. Something like, “a cynic is an optimist who’s become disappointed with human nature.”

With that said, I offer this wonderful song by Jon Secada to remind us (but mostly me) that things are not quite as dire as many would have us believe.

To all the “cynics,” my wonderful students, and my own children,

“I’m Free,” by Jon Secada

For the longest time, I had heard that girls were worse than guys in the way they talked. I took this to mean something along mostly scatological lines.

But I was mistaken.

After playing just about every sport you can imagine, living in a fraternity house for four years, and being around the golf course, both as a player and caddy, I’ve heard (and contributed greatly) to upholding all the preconceived notions I had developed over the years about the ways men “talked.”

But that was before I became a teacher.

In some ways, girls do talk “worse” than boys.

Here’s an article from today’s New York Times which helps illustrate the point:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/fashion/22preps.html?ref=education

The following link from BBC reinforces what most teachers already know.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7943906.stm

And we wonder where the money went?