So many happy memories. Love you and miss you.
Your kids...
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
An Auspicious Beginning
I seem to be stuck in reverse... at least in terms of the chronological order of my blogs. Here is a story that precedes our move from Bar Harbor.
In the summer of 1975 I returned from working the Alaska Pipeline to attend our parents 25th wedding anniversary celebration. I fully intended to return to Alaska and keep raking in the big bucks. And then Connie entered the equation. We had met only twice before I had headed to the frozen North in January, but she had made a strong impression. And so I invited her to meet the family at the 25th party. They were delighted with her bubbly personality... and so was I.
The day came when I was to say goodbye, get on a jet and fly back to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in a pipeline camp in the Arctic Circle. I can't say I was looking forward to the challenge. It was exhausting, lonely, hard work. But I was determined to continue my adventure. Connie had a different vision of my future. She held my hands, looked deeply into my eyes and begged me to stay, but it wasn't until she delivered the coup de grace that I understood that my life was to head in a different... a better... direction.
"Don't go. I'll make you happy," she whispered sweetly.
Game over.
The plan was for me to go back to UMO and obtain a secondary education certificate and for us to undertake careers in public education, enjoying coordinated vacation time and saving the planet one child at a time.
I took a job driving a beer truck for Tabenken Distributors in Veazie and burned the midnight oil completing the core course requirements for my certification. The final challenge was student teaching and I was assigned to a middle school in East Holden. They were country kids, I was teaching science and my supervisor, Bill Stinchfield, was a great guy. We had a blast and success appeared to be within my grasp. Until one day...
We were studying environmental science and the kids seemed interested... except for this one boy. He was having a bad day, actually a bad year, interrupting, making disruptive comments and agitating the class. He was testing me. I was determined to regain control of the class.
" That's enough, Mike," I warned, walking down the aisle to his desk.
"No, it's not," he goaded. The kids laughed nervously, aware that something was coming to a head, the green student teacher vs. the class bad boy.
"OK, you're going to the office," I announced.
"No, I'm not," he challenged.
A hush settled over the room. All eyes were on us and I sensed the intense interest of the other students in our little drama. They had seen many student teachers come and go. They knew a defining moment when they saw one. And here was one.
Mike smiled at me. He smelled victory, yet another student teacher reduced to ashes by his awesome prepubescent power.
I reached down and grasped the front of his flannel shirt. His eyes sparked with alarm. What was this? Teachers couldn't touch students! That was against the rules. "Let go of me!" he demanded. And then I pulled him to his feet and ripped the front of his shirt off his body.
The students were stone silent. Mike began to scream. "I'm going to sue you!"
Well, so much for a career in public education, I thought. "Yeah Mike, you sue me if you want. But you are going to the office... RIGHT NOW!" I bellowed. I saw the fear in his eyes. I walked him out the door and down the hall to the Principal's office, not the first time he had been there. The Principal sent me back to continue my class.
There were no more disruptions that day or for the rest of my term as a student teacher. Mike returned to class the next day, silent and sullen. And at the end of my term I received the highest evaluation Bill Stinchfield had ever awarded a student teacher. Go figure.
I'm sure that today this story would have had a dramatically different ending. But in that place, at that time, with that dysfunctional and abusive young person, my behavior was deemed to have been appropriate... and admirable, albeit without public acknowledgement . As in "Remember the time that student teacher ripped the shirt off that little shit, Mike so-and-so? Wasn't that great?"
Regardless, it was an auspicious beginning...
In the summer of 1975 I returned from working the Alaska Pipeline to attend our parents 25th wedding anniversary celebration. I fully intended to return to Alaska and keep raking in the big bucks. And then Connie entered the equation. We had met only twice before I had headed to the frozen North in January, but she had made a strong impression. And so I invited her to meet the family at the 25th party. They were delighted with her bubbly personality... and so was I.
The day came when I was to say goodbye, get on a jet and fly back to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in a pipeline camp in the Arctic Circle. I can't say I was looking forward to the challenge. It was exhausting, lonely, hard work. But I was determined to continue my adventure. Connie had a different vision of my future. She held my hands, looked deeply into my eyes and begged me to stay, but it wasn't until she delivered the coup de grace that I understood that my life was to head in a different... a better... direction.
"Don't go. I'll make you happy," she whispered sweetly.
Game over.
The plan was for me to go back to UMO and obtain a secondary education certificate and for us to undertake careers in public education, enjoying coordinated vacation time and saving the planet one child at a time.
I took a job driving a beer truck for Tabenken Distributors in Veazie and burned the midnight oil completing the core course requirements for my certification. The final challenge was student teaching and I was assigned to a middle school in East Holden. They were country kids, I was teaching science and my supervisor, Bill Stinchfield, was a great guy. We had a blast and success appeared to be within my grasp. Until one day...
We were studying environmental science and the kids seemed interested... except for this one boy. He was having a bad day, actually a bad year, interrupting, making disruptive comments and agitating the class. He was testing me. I was determined to regain control of the class.
" That's enough, Mike," I warned, walking down the aisle to his desk.
"No, it's not," he goaded. The kids laughed nervously, aware that something was coming to a head, the green student teacher vs. the class bad boy.
"OK, you're going to the office," I announced.
"No, I'm not," he challenged.
A hush settled over the room. All eyes were on us and I sensed the intense interest of the other students in our little drama. They had seen many student teachers come and go. They knew a defining moment when they saw one. And here was one.
Mike smiled at me. He smelled victory, yet another student teacher reduced to ashes by his awesome prepubescent power.
I reached down and grasped the front of his flannel shirt. His eyes sparked with alarm. What was this? Teachers couldn't touch students! That was against the rules. "Let go of me!" he demanded. And then I pulled him to his feet and ripped the front of his shirt off his body.
The students were stone silent. Mike began to scream. "I'm going to sue you!"
Well, so much for a career in public education, I thought. "Yeah Mike, you sue me if you want. But you are going to the office... RIGHT NOW!" I bellowed. I saw the fear in his eyes. I walked him out the door and down the hall to the Principal's office, not the first time he had been there. The Principal sent me back to continue my class.
There were no more disruptions that day or for the rest of my term as a student teacher. Mike returned to class the next day, silent and sullen. And at the end of my term I received the highest evaluation Bill Stinchfield had ever awarded a student teacher. Go figure.
I'm sure that today this story would have had a dramatically different ending. But in that place, at that time, with that dysfunctional and abusive young person, my behavior was deemed to have been appropriate... and admirable, albeit without public acknowledgement . As in "Remember the time that student teacher ripped the shirt off that little shit, Mike so-and-so? Wasn't that great?"
Regardless, it was an auspicious beginning...
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