SLICE OF LIFE

7:30 this morning.
I walk into the school to teach a class and
 I am immediately hit with a huge wave of nostalgia.
I helped open this school in summer, 2000.
My first administrative job.

And I remember.
Taking turns sitting on the folding chair in the office.
The only chair in the office actually.
With the gigantic district supply catalogue.
Just order whatever you think we will need.
Whatever we will need?
Yeah, you know, just basic stuff- paper, office supplies, classroom supplies, rolls of paper.
Imagine setting up a new apartment or a house.
Then multiply that by a million.

And I remember how much I loved working with Deb.
Just do what you think is best, Carol. I trust you to make good decisions. 
The almost daily late, late, (think six o'clock) afternoon conferences.  

The job fair in a hot, dirty school the day after school got out,
when she was on crutches with a bum knee and I had laryngitis.
And we hired The Boy Reader and several other terrific young teachers.
The year that I dealt with a thrower upper on one side of the graduation stage
and she did a passer outer on the other end (or maybe it was the other way around). 
And later, when I was about to take the boys, the bags of socks and underwear
 (you mean they won't come with this stuff? They really won't come with anything?)
And how she got her son to take my boys for their first haircut
without making me feel badly that I hadn't noticed that they needed a haircut.
The way she cuddled my boys in her lap when they were naughty.

I stand there in that front hallway and remember.
Miss Jodi, world's best secretary, who made me laugh a hundred times a day.
Claudia and Eileen, our brilliant first grade team,
who were passionate about producing perfection for kids every single day.
I think of all of the young teachers we grew- Kathy, Stefani, Laura, Sharyn, Maria, Lauren-
the coaching, the cajoling, the comforting. 
How I could always count on Kyle to stop by every morning to share books or kid stories.
I remember Pat and Brian, the PE teachers.
The crazy jokes that Pat and Brian would play on each other.
(I swear, Carol, I don't know how Brian's gloves ended up in the center of the showcase in the fifth grade hall. I didn't have anything to do with it). 
I think about Britt and her magical music programs.
Every kid at GVE loved to sing.
And how hard I cried when we had to let her go
because she wasn't "highly qualified" (whatever that means).

I stand in the front hall and remember
the very best years of my teaching life.