The top was all the way down as the little red MG sped through the winding roads of the Town of Crawford. One of the few FM stations that could get audible reception was playing Asia cranked all the way to the maximum volume, “One thing is sure…that time will tell.” At 7 am on this September morning there was the slightest aura of Autumn and school books. A kid who had possessed a disdain for being a student, and an overall cavalier attitude toward academia, was cruising along headed for his first day of being an educator. Like the dark roots that hid beneath his sun bleached hair, there was much more to this young man than met the eye.
My room was sandwiched between two very distinctly different teachers: 58 year-old Doris Hambly and 25 year-old Dan Greenberg. Ms. Hambly was the “kindly grandmother- type” who was losing her grip on keeping up with the youth of the present decade. This fact didn’t seem to bother her in the least. Mr. Greenburg looked like he had just been rescued from a summer tour with the Grateful Dead. It had been only six years since “The Last Waltz” was filmed and still, his favorite rock group was the “The Band”. The two were a perfect sampling of the dichotomy that existed amongst the Circleville staff. When classes were done for the day, the young and the old, the married and the single, all mingled together in the hazy, muddled, seedy area of sex in the work place. The principal, a great guy, happened to be fooling around with the guidance counsel
or, the science teacher was having an affair with the English teacher, and the gym teacher was trying to score with everybody. As for me, I reserved my faculty flings for an older, recently divorced, sixth grade teacher. She was a rookie teach who taught health and coached the girls field hockey team.
I can recollect so many people and events from that year in the finest detail even today: George Coates, acting as the AV guy, pushing the film projector to my room to give both of us a chance to get out of class. Rich Cameron sitting with a smirk on his face, in the back row of fifth period, claiming he didn’t have to do any work because he was going to play pro football. Dariane Miranda sitting in the first seat of a row that included four girls named Jennifer, or as I referred to them, Jennifer 1, 2, 3, and 4. I was always relieved that she raised her hand often because I had no trouble remembering her name. Barbara Casella and Kristen Buckner, a pair of best friends, went from the classroom to the sports’ bus when they signed on to be the statistician duo for the JV basketball team that I coached; two girls that I watched grow up before my eyes as they hung around the older athletes. Diana Cook, 15 going on 25, was surrounded by rumors that she was dating former Monkees’ drummer Mickey Dolenz, which she was. Chris Schick making out with the “flavor of the week”. Jim Whittel learning the state trooper code of silence early in life by walking up on a teacher on graduation night, behind the school, doing something undeniably against the rules.
All of the above are clear memories of a younger time that escaped most of us too many years ago. But in the few semesters I spent at Circleville, the most vivid images in my head come from the two occasions I chaperoned the eighth grade trip to Washington D.C. It was on the road trip in the late spring of 1984 when the lines that are only talked about in whispers were quite possibly crossed. The two Greyhound busses cruised down the New Jersey Turnpike with the sounds of Iron Maiden, Tom Petty and Van Halen seeping through air-tight windows. On the first night we arrived in D.C., a poker game broke out in one of the hotel rooms. It was tame at a 25/50 cent ante game, but as the gambling was breaking down with tomfoolery, a frustrated teacher stuck about 60 bucks was heard saying, “Shut the f… up and deal the cards.” On the next night, a male teacher and a female teacher were supposedly in a room that housed five eighth grades girls when a beer party ensued. One of the girl’s parents complained about the alleged incident when everyone arrived home. Following a shallow investigation involving some “forgetful” young girls, the Teflon teacher and the potential scandal were swept under the rug. Not only did I have lots of fun that trip with my young charges, I also spent plenty of time seeing the historical sites, and hiding in hotel stairwells with my fellow chaperone, a young student teacher named Maryann. That year’s visit to the nation’s capital was quite a sendoff for me as I was moved up to the high school in the fall.
Thirty one winters have passed. A black Cadillac glides over the exact same roads that the 1972 red MG convertible did on that long ago September morning. The music was softer, the speed of the car was slower, the ride was smoother, and the sense of urgency was subdued. It is March 21, 2015 and with the ground still white there wasn’t any sign that this was the first day of Spring. The Ides of March had just passed in the unpredictable month bridging Winter and Spring, between moving on and leaving behind. As I pass one of the many beautiful horse farms, I can see the images of my former students.
I hear the buzz of energetic youth in the hallway; the young teenagers so desperately attempting to be adults. I look into the open fields and I see those faces in front of me: Chris Battaglia, Maria Mancuso, Kelley Malara, Corey White, Sue Hassler… there are many others. As it was once upon a time, they seemed to be waiting for my direction, wondering what I’m going to say next. I’m traveling down that same highway, the one where I had made so many wrong turns, the same road I began the search to find myself. Those students I see in the field now had been my fountain of youth. The man behind the wheel of the Cadillac makes a sharp turn off of route 302 into the old school. Visualizing those younger years, he wants to go back.
