1994, Dix Hills, New York

By John Gaccione

Mr. L’s easy-going nature made him quite popular with students outside the classroom. His was a constant presence at every school activity where, if he wasn’t chaperoning any number of dances, proms, or sporting events, he’d attend just to hang out with the kids. But no matter where he was, no matter how much was going on around him, he’d always take the time to find me in the crowd, usually hanging out somewhere on the periphery.

Who could figure what attracted this man to me, a teenage nobody, devoid of school spirit, sometimes just devoid of spirit? He was years older, worlds wiser, and at times downright scholarly. And unlike most teachers understandably drawn to the better students, who returned their favor with excellence, Mr. L had no reason to take to me. He taught Spanish, a subject that, like so many others, was Greek to me.

That he came to mind after so many years I owe to my son. One of my children’s least endearing traits is how at times they remind me of me. The me I used to be. The me with all the bad parts. Certainly there are good parts, but the bad parts stick out like big ears on a shaved head. If my son’s lucky, though, he just might encounter a Mr. L; if he’s smart, he won’t neglect him.

Mr. L might have been easy-going, but he was no-nonsense inside the classroom when it came to students unexceptional by dint of attitude rather than application. You were never faulted for trying. Not caring was something else. And he knew the difference.

Which was how I caught his eye, at least the corner of it, since I squirreled myself away to the side of the room and as far back as possible. On the heels of a miserable run of test grades and my indifferent response to them, Mr. L asked to see me after school.

This direct approached dazed me a bit. After all, in my defense, I may have been apathetic, but I wasn’t disruptive, didn’t smoke in the boys’ room or set fires in trashcans. And I certainly never cheated. (My grades could attest to that.) I was quite harmless.

Other teachers practiced benign neglect and it seemed to work just fine. I shuddered at the prospect of sitting alone in a room with him absent 20 other bodies to hide behind. I’d have to pay attention, or least give the appearance.

Sitting across from him, I girded myself for the worst.

“Juan, you’re hopeless!” This was his opening line and he exhaled deeply after saying it. Call me crazy, but I thought it had a nice ring to it. Somehow, deep down, I sensed he was trying to be serious but in a funny kind of way.

I smiled. He smiled. And that was how it began. Oh, there was a lecture, to be sure, but he was more concerned than critical, and after a while we fell into easy conversation and I found myself, for the first time ever, opening up to an adult. We spent that afternoon, and so many more during my senior year talking more about me than about Spanish.

I suppose I was an introverted and somewhat confused 17-year-old. I rarely smiled and looked like I was brooding. I expect I was not easy to like, at least by not anyone in authority, yet this man went out of his way to know me. In time I confided my secret fears, my adolescent longings. Perhaps it was nothing more than coming-of-age angst, but he listened patiently, telling me about his own children, who apparently were nothing like me, and their own growing pangs. He was encouraging, seeing qualities in me nobody else did, qualities I wouldn’t see until years later.

So what happened? Did I subsequently excel? Did all the extra tutoring and sentence drilling the day before an exam sink in? Of course not. Nothing much changed. An outsider could not be faulted for thinking Mr. L failed miserably in his role as teacher, but that would be inaccurate. He was, without my knowing, teaching me something about myself.

And how did I eventually repay this man, this kind and gentle man who without my realizing it made me feel good about myself? By all but forgetting about him after I graduated and went off to one of the few colleges that accepted me. A few letters were exchanged over that first year - his richly detailed and inquisitive, mine short and to the point - but I never followed up on any suggested get togethers and eventually stopped writing him.

Somewhere along the way in college I woke up and good things started to happen, just as Mr. L had predicted, maybe too blindly, perhaps too hopefully. I suppose at this point it would be nice if I turned out to be someone so celebrated everybody knew my name. Suffice to say, I turned out all right. But what Mr. L couldn’t teach me at the time, what I learned on my own, was this: over the years I’d given too much time and too much of myself to too many of the wrong people. But then who hasn’t? There are bills to pay, careers to make.

In all of this, though, there ought to be some recognition for the people who are simply kind and giving and expect nothing in return. Mr. L deserved something better than just a fond memory.

More than 20 years after I abruptly walked out of Mr. L’s life, I just as abruptly walked back into it. When I’d heard that he had retired from teaching and moved away, I tracked down his phone number and gave him a call. When he answered, I haltingly said, “Me illamo es Juan Gaccione,” and without missing a beat, he said, “Mi amigo, Juan….”

And then we talked and talked and talked and set a definite date to get together.

I had changed, but Mr. L hadn’t.

John Gaccione is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Newsday, regional sections of The New York Times, and trade publications.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, December 15th, 2006 | Email This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 12:04 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.