A Lifetime

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A Lifetime topic started 6/21/2005; 12:43:40 PM last post 6/21/2005; 12:43:40 PM

timbrazo@y... - A Lifetime   6/21/2005; 11:43:40 AM (reads: 2215, responses: 0) Until now, I hadn’t realized, John, that both you and my dad were hired at Foothill in the same year, 1965, the year I was born. What I remember: A boyhood of summers at Foothill. The sweetness of apricots picked from the trees of a vestigial orchard. The familiar smell of chlorine from the faculty pool. Honey bees drowning on the hot pavement. The creak of the floorboards in a ramshackle old house. Sprawling areas of plush grass under brilliant blue skies. And afternoons at Rossotti’s where my dad and the rest of the Language Arts faculty (including you, I imagine) gathered and laughed and argued while I splashed in the creek, seeking tadpoles. Flint, Applebaum, Rink, Gallo, Berthiaume, Schrier, Luotto, Mauch, Lovas... These names and others repeated again and again in my dad’s stories, paeans, and diatribes, echoed through my memory of my childhood. They became emblems for me of the remote experience of adults in their world, resonating for me like the names of deities, demigods, and heroes. Up on Mount Olympus: After I finished high school in 1983, I began at Foothill, for my dad believed there was no better place for me to get an education. He was passionate about what you, he, and others had created at Foothill. And so, there I was, surrounded by the figures of my childhood pantheon; taking classes there felt, at first, like some sacred initiation into adulthood. John, you’d already left for De Anza, so I didn’t get to know you or to take classes from you, though I can only wonder how just one of your classes might have changed me. (I quietly envy those who’ve been your students.) Following John, I migrate to De Anza: It was years later, in 1997, when I came to De Anza to teach. Here, over the years, I have had the privilege to know you as colleague, mentor, collaborator, and, above all, friend. I owe so much to you. In our exchanges about politics, about students we have had in common or have known through the Honors program, and about what we can do as teachers, you always treated me with respect and generosity. I was—and am-- inspired by your deep and abiding respect for your students--your belief in them—and the pure joy you seem to take from their success. And you’ve been a great mentor for me, introducing me to NCTE and TYCA, sponsoring me for my first 4Cs, standing by me through so many personal and professional challenges. I always felt you believed in me. Changes visible: I never imagined De Anza without you here, John, just as I never imagined a world without my dad, your old friend and colleague. Today, up at Foothill, the fruit trees have long since been removed, the pool has been filled in, the faculty house demolished, and the saplings that once offered no shade have grown into robust and leafy trees that, while protecting us from the heat, seem to close off the sky. My earliest memories are fading or are being remodeled, and while your name still resonates from the beginning, your importance in my life has only grown and become palpable. I really mean this: John, although I can’t help regretting how the world keeps sliding into the past, I feel that I and so many whom you’ve touched or taught will bring your teaching with us and the world will be the better for it. I am with you and your family. Discuss