In honor of English teachers who have recently passed and/or retired: Oh, to be an English Teacher - Possessor of the worlds most thankless and selfless roles - the parents of classrooms and custodians of horny adolescents. Burdened, cursed, blessed or gifted to teach sentence structure, diagramming, and grammar to petulant children - But, once in a while, the inspired ones emerge from a barren field of burned out academic gloom Like 6th grade teacher Mrs. Mittlestet - She who encouraged the shy, portly 6th grader to write, and then recalled and praised his essay 7 years later in a chance encounter at Century 22 Berryessa Theaters Or, how about 8th grades intimidating and terrifying Mrs. Harp - She whose first words were a barked command to sit up straight! - whose demand for excellence ushered a curiousity and taste for Big Brother, Shakesperean Sonnets and Dickens. Both have left us now, hopefully for a far, far better rest than any of us have known. - (We just learned Mrs. Harp died over the weekend from liver cancer. Mrs. Mittlestet passed away two years ago.) But, do not despair, oh mortals! For English Honors superheroes live on! - The mighty Tom Alessandri of Bellarmine High School just announced he is retiring after 30+ years of passionate, ferocious, sloppy, big-hearted, shameless, exuberant teaching. Yes, the hoarse-throated Phantam of Benson Theater - The madman can still be heard cursing and ranting to the heavens his rebuke of overrated Hemingway, his noble but futile request for humanity to stop using the term Sci-Fi and his strange but endearing phobia of eyeballs. To this, I can only say: O captain, my captain
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 05:49:32 +0000
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