I walk everyday for my health, my doctor tells me to, sometimes I take my camera, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I end up thinking of small moments that I have saved in my mind very clearly and sharply and I don't even know why.
When I was in the 7th and 8th grade I had a science teacher, his name was Ken Williams, that is his real name. He was a great teacher. This was one of the questions on his test (and you had to explain your answer): is the Earth heavier, lighter, or about the same as it was when the dinosaurs were on earth? Ok, that sounds pretty simple, except we had just had a unit on how very heavy dinosaurs were and how big, the size of buildings and 1959 Cadillac Sedan DeVilles. So it was a stumper for me until I gave it a bit of thought.
Not as much of a stumper though as when his friend, my math teacher, told us to (for extra credit) draw a triangle with two 90ยบ angles. I did not get that one. No one did. But at least we were thinking.
So anyway, back to the point of this blog. I was sick (as in I could convince my mother I was sick) a lot and missed a fair amount of school. The moments of real learning and stimulation were far outnumbered by the hours of sheer tedium. I would rather stay home and read.
One afternoon, sometime on a warm Indiana May day, I was staying after school to make up a test I had missed in Mr. Williams' class. I was the only kid in the room and was working away. Mr. Williams had opened the windows and was watering his many carefully labeled plants. I guess he forgot I was there and he started to softly sing to himself. This is the song, maybe some of you remember it. "I want to be around, to pick up the pieces, when somebody breaks your heart. Somebody twice as smart, as me..."
He had a great voice, that was a little surprising. It was silky and clear and carried the melody over the plants and desks, the chalk and papers. I stopped writing and just listened to him. And here I am now, 50 years later, and I can still hear that voice. Tony Bennett sang the song and Frank Sinatra, but nobody sang it as sweetly as Ken Williams did that day.
