WHEN EYE TO EYE AND SOUL TO SOUL Old friends CAN return to the hour of splendor in the grass and the glory in the flower. Forty-four years ago, I began my career as an elementary and middle school art teacher with USD 479 in Colony and Kincaid, Kansas. In that wonderful rural setting, I would teach and work and play with the boys and girls for five great years. I first greeted the kids of USD 479 as a 24 year old teacher. Five years later I reluctantly left to greet the great boys and girls in Iola. My wife was teaching art in Iola HS and we had purchased our first home here. The administrator who asked me to come to USD 257 was Dick Sears, the fine principal of Jefferson School. He knew my wife as his girls HS art teacher and through her, me. He kindly asked me to come to Iola and eat lunch with my wife. Who could have a better job interview than that? Piece of cake! I really, really loved teaching in rural USD 479! Jr. High kids could jump in the back of my pickup anytime and perhaps wed drive several miles down a gravel road to sketch a dead coyote hanging on a farmers fence. Or, we would all take garbage bags outside the first day after the Kincaid Fair and clean the fairgrounds together. The kids were playful but worked hard and wanted to do well. Those were good days with happy kids and great parental support for their schools! I pride myself in never really leaving my students. I tell them that we will just be meeting in different places. However, they do grow up and if I cant look into their eyes, nose to nose for good recollection of the child and instead only read about their lives and see who theyve become on Facebook, I can let the best of them sort of slip out of my consciousness! I could lose my way with what has taken the place of the peach fuzz on their upper lip and perhaps theyve grown a couple of feet in height and a couple of inches in the waste line. Sometimes even the greatest of connections with another human being can become lost....temporarily..... for perhaps even 39 years. Let me tell you about a great reuniting with my old buddy, Todd Stiffler. There was, forty plus years ago, one special little lad who had such a powerful, SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU MR. ORCUTT! look in his eyes every day, that he made me feel, without question, that I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time! He and I clicked right off and I always felt that when he left the art class that there was something more that I could have shared with him that would have pleased him than time allowed. He counted on Mr. Orcutt and Mr. Orcutt counted on Todd Stiffler! We all need to have friends like that in our lives and when we do have them we never forget them. Hey! Todd, I have been pleased to have several Stifflers in art classes since we enjoyed each others company but THAT BIGGER THAN LIFE AUTHENTICALLY RUGGED FELLER RIDIN THAT HOSS WASNT THE LITTLE BOY I KNEW!!!! UNTIL HE STOPPED ME AT WALMART YESTERDAY, SHOOK MY HAND, AND WE WERE EYE TO EYE AND SOUL TO SOUL!! I GOT TO SEE MY LIL BUDDY THAT I HAD BEEN MISSING FOR 39 YEARS!!!! I FELT AGAIN THAT I WAS IN EXACTLY THE RIGHT PLACE AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME AND WHEN WE PARTED I FELT JUST AS BEFORE -THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING MORE THAT WE COULD HAVE SHARED. ----------Now, I get it!!! I never could quite understand how that rough and ready man amongst men, that other Todd Stiffler, could take the time from his macho life to stop and smell the roses and photograph all that beauty and how he found himself such a gorgeous wife. Now I understand everything. A great boy like Todd Stiffler, well, that kind of boy always lives within the GREAT MAN! Todd, Im so proud to know you!-Steve-Alias Mr. Orcutt
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:57:37 +0000
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