Saturday in the Park

...but it's not the Fourth of July, as the song goes. The first half of this day has been lovely: breakfast at a leisurely pace, some raking and tree pruning, sitting in the sun to do a couple of crossword puzzles, conversation with a couple of dear friends, cutting a half dozen spears of asparagus from the garden, hanging a load of laundry to dry in the sun and light breeze. These I look forward to on an almost daily basis once school is done for the year, so while they're delightful to experience today, one other event was even sweeter: the recognition at a special park in town of two educators, one retired and one a current teacher. The current teacher calls the middle school home, so I don't know him well at all, but the retired teacher happens to be a very long-time friend, and his award is the reason my husband and I attended the event.

Al was the coach of the soccer and boys basketball teams when I first started teaching, and he was athletic director and boys P.E. teacher as well. For the first 13 years of my tenure in this school district, I coached varsity cheerleading. *waits for laughter to die down* My cheerleaders and I had many good times, and we cheered for our teams regardless of weather or scores, some of which were quite lopsided. *refrains from saying in which direction* Some of the most memorable times were the long bus rides to away games when, to while away the time, Al, who always sat in the front of the bus, would turn around and start some kind of song or chant. He was famous for "The Cookie Jar" one that went something like this, in call and response format: "Hey kids, guess what?" "What?" "Tom Bailey stole the cookie from the cookie jar!" and the kid had to respond with: "Who me?" and everyone else said: "Uh huh." The kid's response:"Couldn't be!" to which we all replied: "Then who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?" and Tom blamed the theft on someone else, calling out: "Jake Todd stole the cookie from the cookie jar." ...and on and on and on until everyone on the bus - Al would make sure of that - had been "victimized." He was the big kid with the deep voice who would sing folk songs and popular songs, and the rest would join in, so the hour long bus rides weren't painful at all.

You always know where you stand with Al. He's tall, and he has a loud voice that almost scared some people, but he has a heart of gold. He never expected more of others than he was willing to give, but he did expect civility and he wasn't afraid to teach people how they should do that. He made a marvelous lunch duty supervisor, especially in those years of a particularly rowdy and undisciplined class that tended to enjoy making life miserable for everyone around them. Everyone knew what behavior was expected of them in the cafeteria, so unless you wanted Al standing tall over you and asking in his booming voice what you thought you were doing, you behaved. We knew we'd miss him when he announced that it was time for him to retire, so we had a photo of him blown up to life size and mounted with a stand on the back so we'd have him there with us during lunch period. "Flat Al" was this pretender's name, and he made his appearance today at the park after the serious part of the ceremony was over. What a hoot to see one with his arm slung over the other one's shoulder!

Teachers don't tend to get a lot of feedback from students and colleagues who carry on with life after the years together, so today's gathering was very sweet for Al and for the rest of us. The crowd wasn't huge, but it was a meaningful group. The speeches were heartfelt, and there was nothing but joy in the air. I'm thankful to the alumnus and the businesswoman who initiated the park project and who had the vision to make it a beautiful place that recognizes educators.