- everyone was so afraid of you and my sister hated you when she was in your class almost ten years before me
- when i saw your name on my schedule for junior year, i was terrified
- you were so strict, so harsh, and scared everyone on a daily basis
- but as the year went on and kids left your class and we all adapted to your rules, we realized why you do things the way you do
- you were in the marines and fought in vietnam
- you are naturally very particular about the way you do things -to the point of obsession
- i had never seen an adult do things like that - like me
- i admired you for your control and strength and dependability
- and you favored me because i not only followed your rules and instructions to the t, but i also understood why you had them, they made sense to me, you made sense to me
- you sat me down at the end of the fall semester and said 'you have a 99.9% in this class. i've never said this before, but just keep doing exactly what you're doing.'
- you filled my pink leopard print and gold glitter rocket for the demo for the class and what do you know, it flew perfectly on my test run
- you bought the class a giant dessert at the sea shanty in cayucous
- when i got stung by a jellyfish, you clapped me on the shoulder and said 'you got chosen! now you have a story to tell!'
- when my dad was released from prison, he came to my house and him and my mom sat talking for hours - while they were doing that, i was completing my yosemite scrapbook, taking such extra care with it and i was so nervous to turn it in. you were so impressed you asked if you could take it to the teachers lounge and show it to the other teachers. it meant more to me than you could know.
- our trips to the beach, and yosemite, and even the water treatment facility, were so much unexpected fun and experience, and i didn't realized until later how rare that was for a teacher to work that hard for his students to experience things like that
- when we threw you our own kid-planned retirement party and you came in and got choked up, it was one of the most touching moments of all four years of high school - we were determined to show you that we appreciated you and understood you
- you were the dad i never had, a stable, reliable, strict, authoritarian who genuinely cared about the kids he was teaching and the impact he could have on them
- thank you for being you and showing me that it was okay to be me and thank you for caring
may 14 2020 ∞
may 15 2020 +
may 15 2020 +