Let’s be clear.  Very clear, in fact. 

I shudder at some of the things that I tried, and I shudder more when I think of what I put those folks so dear to me today through.

If there happens to be any aspiring teachers that read this, I can furnish you names of my school board during that time; I’m sure after your visit with them, you will be duly recommended to a path dissimilar to what you are about to read.

There.  I feel better now.

*****

It’s soon going to be 20 years ago that I went to the east door of the John Deere mechanic shop where I had worked for the previous 7 years, and lingered. 

I lingered for quite some time.  I had found a home there, coming in green as a gourd about mechanical issues, and, thanks to the kindness of the folks I worked with, had become somewhat adept at that which I knew nothing of earlier.

I lingered because of the friends I was going to leave behind.  I knew, even then, some of those friends didn’t think this new venture was going to work, and expected me back within a year, maybe two.

I lingered, even though there was no one else in the shop, and breathed in deeply of the smell of cleaning solvent, brake and parts cleaner, grease, oil, stale exhaust fumes, and the companionable smell of Sam’s cigarette smoke.

Finally, I pushed the door open, and walked out to my truck, now heavily loaded with all my tools and accompaniments of the trade that I had acquired through the years.  It stopped me in my tracks as I looked it over, realizing that I had started with nothing.  No tools, and no money to buy tools. 

I still have most of those tools today. 

But let’s not get off the subject.

I got the books from school room I was to inhabit for the next 5 years and took them home with me. 

As near as I know, I think I had set foot in a classroom like this once, since I had left there 14 years previous.

There was a very distinct feeling that I was back at square one again, just like the beginning day at John Deere. 

I knew nothing about it, and I had no tools with which to ply the trade.

The books I took home had all I needed to be a good teacher.  However, I didn’t know how to interpret them.  There were things that I understood easily, and then some things that made no sense whatsoever. 

Like proportions. 

And DO’s.

And IO’s.

Or, have mercy, transitive verbs.  And what in the world was an indirect object pronoun?

I looked down at my still grease stained fingers with white scars shining through here and there, reminders of the days just vacated, as they clumsily paged through those books and almost rang the bell right then and there.

But it was interesting reading.  At least the science books.  And it seemed like a little light was beginning to shine, way down in the distance.  I was beginning the think of ways to talk about this stuff with . . . I guess with my students.

My school board bought me a ticket to Ithaca, Michigan for a Teacher’s Prep class that consisted of 3 days of intense preparation, after which I was supposed to be ready to face the world of a schoolteacher with confidence.

They said all kinds of nice things to me there, like, “Oh, you are going to be a natural at it,” and “Yeah, since you are married, you already have a big jump on this.”

And I sucked it up and believed them.  Maybe even pushed my chest out a bit.

Until they had a workshop going, and asked all the students of that class (of which I was one) to come up to the chalk board and diagram the sentence written there.

“Come with me,” I hissed to my good wife.

I found the subject, and next the verb. 

And then that was it.  The rest of the sentence blurred off into total obscurity. 

I hunched up against my good wife in what I hoped was a gesture of affection to those seated and  looking on from behind us and whispered, “What’s that word?,” and pointed, sort of, from my waist, and sort of, with my thumb let’s say, in what I hoped was a very discreet action on my part.

She, being of a very kind and generous nature, surprised me senseless when she said, “Well, what do you think it is?  Do you think it is a pronoun, preposition, or . . .” 

I’m pretty sure I saw her make a supreme effort to hide the smirk twitching at the corner of her beautiful lips.

I was pouring sweat in a room full of females, and it wasn’t because I was some hot dude by their standards. 

This was a setup, and I knew it. 

Or maybe it wasn’t. 

Maybe, it was a precursor of what was to come, and I needed to meet it head on, with the wonder humility of a child.

Because in the end, that’s what I was. 

I was a student with each of my students.