Not so Flagpole Neighbor

When I first began teaching, I was part time and had no room of my own: I was a scholastic nomad, a cart teacher. Everything I needed for my classes that day had to be packed, stacked and organized on that little four-wheeled vehicle so I could push it to other teacher's rooms and teach during their prep periods. (If you've ever been in a crowded high school between classes, you know that this was a navigational nightmare.)

All my handouts and supplies had to be on this cart, which, I must admit, forced me to be better organized than I am now. Too many places to stash things in a big room. A few years ago, one of my former students came back to observe my class as a part of his university requirement in preparation for becoming a teacher. When he arrived, I was pawing through piles of papers for a copy of the day's schedule to give him, and he said, "Still looking for stuff, huh, Mrs. Kies?"

During that year of the cart, one veteran teacher was very fussy and never failed to chastise me if a desk was out of place or a scrap of paper left on the floor. Daily, I scrambled to straighten the desks, erase the board, and pick up the room, only to have him glare at me as I headed off to my next classroom. I didn't know if it was me, or the idea of sharing his room that irritated him, but I came to think of him as Mr. Persnickety, and sometimes worse, depending.

When I went to full time and FINALLY got my own room in the new part of our school, guess who became my next-door neighbor.

At first, I avoided him whenever possible. Then, I began to pick up on his quirks. He taught three classes of freshman geography, and one of his winter traditions was to confide in them that school was being let out early because of an incoming snow or ice storm, "but don't tell anyone." Of course being freshmen, unless someone had filled them in (and who wanted to ruin the fun?), they swallowed the bait. They looked out the windows expectantly and knowingly, and spread the word, not suspecting they'd been horns waggled. This only works once per year, but Persnickety thought it good fun and a proper initiation, I guess.

Because I had been part time and did not eat lunch or spend time in the teacher's lounge, I had not realized that Persnickety used his perfected poker face for challenging the inexperienced "rookies," both students and faculty. It was his forte---his MO. After I became full time, I found out at lunch one day that he had told one of the other teachers during her first year that, as a new teacher, she wasn't supposed to go to the Christmas party; it was only for veterans. So, she didn't go.

"Don't believe anything this guy tells you," they said. Now they tell me.

OK, I get it. He's old school. He loves high-jinx and respects experience and chutzpah. One day in the teacher's lounge he was bragging about one of his pranks, and I referred to him as body part that rhymes with "flagpole." He roared with laughter. Loved it. I'd put a stamp on his preferred persona and mailed it back to him.

He retired this year, and I'm going to miss Persnickety more than I ever would have imagined. We've been through a lot the past fifteen years, sharing our stories and commiserations while watching traffic in the hall between classes. One day two girls were beating up on another one, and he intervened; one jumped on him in anger and hurt his back, and later that spring he had to go to court and testify in the matter. Somewhere in those years, he discovered he had cancer, and has now been free of it for more than five years. Before one of his nauseating chemo treatments, not knowing what else to do, I gave him a package of Hershey's Hugs; he liked that, too.

During my prep time, bits of the lively and compelling discussion from his Social Problems class would lead me to shirk my work and eavesdrop, especially on the day he had the maximum security prison guards as guest speakers. And, when the AP Gov class decorated the room for the holidays using a cardboard soldier, their own political cartoons and Christmas lights, it could be a tad distracting.

The past two years, his grade-school age grandson Austin came to his room almost every day after school so they could walk home together. Grandpa, or Pop, as Austin called him, helped him with his homework and spelling words while preparing his room for the following day of classes. Austin always visited my room to say "hi" and sometimes drew me pictures and filled me in on his school day.

After my son passed away five years ago, and this past year, my mother, Persnickety came to my room offering sentiments of compassion. We watched each others' guided studies and each others' backs (except for that one time in the hall.) Before he left he bestowed on me a few of his plants, including Ol' Betsy, a ten-foot cactus, and his podium, embellished with layers of stickers and student autographs and laden with 30-plus years of experience and memories.

He and his wife deserve the best of retirements. Now, every day will be a snow day, only without the snow.