Today in car line I had the pleasure (?) of seeing an old student of mine. He was in a 9th grade bonehead general science class that I taught back in 1989.  So, let's use our math skills and see that this was 19 years ago. First of all, 19 years ago seems like a very long time and makes me feel very old. Second of all, in defense of my age, I was fresh out of college in 1988 so these kids really weren't all THAT much younger than me. But let me continue the story. This guy was in car line picking up his daughter who is the same age as my daughter.  He braved the car line police and left his vehicle to come over and tap on my window.  He smiled at me through the window showing his lack of any upper teeth. He then launched into a long story about how he had pulled out his high school year book last night and proceeded to tell me how young I looked in the faculty picture section. I was thinking about being offended but then I remembered how he was as a student and realized that he probably meant no harm. I'm not sure he would have enough game to cleverly insult me. Anyhoo, turns out he just wanted to apologize to me for the way he acted in my class.  He said he hates that I quit because I was a good teacher and he wishes that he hadn't been so uncaring and difficult.  At this point I get the feeling that he thinks I quit teaching the next year based solely on his behavior.  The truth is I didn't quit teaching until YEARS later and of all the students I could point at to blame for my headaches, he wasn't one of them. I told him that I remembered him well and I didn't remember him as a troublemaker.  He was less than a model student, but never did he show malice or even disrespect.  He begged to differ, obviously laden with guilt, so I told him once again that everything was fine and he should feel comforted knowing I felt no ill will toward him.  He seemed okay after that and returned to his extremely blue truck.  I looked over at Pateriko who was sitting in the passenger seat during the entire conversation. He was unimpressed except to say that he thought it was pretty gross that the guy spit his tobacco on the parking lot in the middle of a sentence.  I had to agree.  

Beej