I have some things I need to tell you all he said. People kept talking. He stood there in front of us until everyone stopped. It only took a minute or two. He had that ability. He had a presence. He wasn’t super tall. He was rather skinny. He didn’t raise his voice. He just had a presence.

When he had our attention, he said: so I need to be honest with you all. This year, this class, all of you, will be the last children I ever teach. At the end of the year I will retire.

I remember being shocked. He was the most loved teacher in our school. He was old, but not old. My mom now says, he was only in his late 40′s at the time. He was tough and real and never took shit from anyone. But the entire school wanted to be in his class. The staff loved him, all the parents loved him, he was that guy. The guy that you hope knows your name. He taught fifth grade. We were ten years old. I remember wanting to be in his class from second grade on.

He continued talking.

This year is my last year teaching, because I have a disease called ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I am one of Jerry’s kids. He explained to us his disease. Explained how it would debilitate him slowly. That it attacks your muscles and would eventually attack his heart and lung muscles. He explained what being one of Jerry’s kids meant. Most of us sat there and cried. I found out this summer, he told us. They’d been testing me for various things for a year. We figure I’ve had it for up to five years.

The kid next to me raised his hand. He was the morbid kid. I’d swear there was one in every class. Jeremy was ours. The kid who read Stephen King Novels at recess. We all made fun of him for that. His death and dying weird fascination, I think made us all nervous. (Then again, he’s a heart surgeon now and probably makes more money than the rest of the class, so um Jeremy? I’m sorry. Yay Stephen King novels at ten years old.) That day though, he asked the question we all wanted to ask. Are you dying?

Yes, was the answer. But you know, we are all dying. One day, we all die. I’m a lot older than any of you. It’s just god’s plan. I guarantee you though, I won’t die on you this year.

I could have stopped teaching, he said. But I thought to myself, if I have three good years left, which is what they tell me, I want one more year to influence you all. I want one more year to do some good in the world. To teach you. Teaching has always been my favorite thing to do. I will do it for one more year and then I will travel with my wife and children for however long I am able.

I picked each of you by hand. The 22 of you in this class need to know, that I hand picked you. They don’t normally let us do that, pick kids ourselves. Normally what happens is your teachers from last year get together and place you in the following years classes. Yet this year they let me. Each of you is here for a reason. You don’t have to know why, just know I wanted the honor of teaching you all.

Then he answered some questions, explained to us that all of our parents would be in the class at various times helping out and then he moved onto our math lesson. Oh wait, one more thing he said…..sometimes I can’t feel my boogers. So y’all just tell me if you see them okay? We all laughed. The fact alone was that a teacher just said boogers out loud. It was funny. It broke the ice. He in one sentence went from being the guy who is dying, back to being our silly teacher.

Mr. A was a great teacher. He was insane though. Or insane to a ten year olds mind. He made us learn Square Dancing. One day a week (the day without art, gym or computer class) for the entire year, he made us Square Dance. He was convinced we may need it later in life. It’s very popular don’t you know? Square Dancing. Snort. We never got to pick out own dance mate. He did it for us. Square Dancing at ten years old. It was torture.

He made us sit in desk groups of four. Two boys and two girls to a group. If you were a girl, you had a boy next to you and across from you. Every few weeks, we’d come in on a Monday and he’d of completely rearranged them again. We’d get to play the fun game of, find your desk again.

Once a week a parent came in and did some type of project with us. My mom did paper mache somethings. I can’t remember what, but I remember doing it. Others did science projects, cooking class, music….one woman even tried to teach us yoga.

Mr. A threw major Halloween, Christmas and Valentines day parties. We learned how to make Latkes for Hanukkah. We made kites for Chinese New Year. He thought any holiday deserved to be celebrated, so we celebrated them all. We’d learn about it one week and then the next week, all extra activities would be about it.

He took us, along with a ton of parents, camping for three days at the end of the year. He said it was good life training for us city kids. We needed to learn about dirt, trees and rocks. No other class or teacher did that. We all raised the money for this ourselves. We ran bake sales. We washed cars. It was a major class project.

If we went and told him a boy was teasing us, he’d say, awwww he’s just sweet on you, you go on now and tell him thank you. Ha. We never got sympathy on that.

He told us stories of  “back in the day”. He could have written for Bill Cosby. Seriously.

He made us act out the stories we read. He made each of us, read out loud and take turns writing things on the board.

He didn’t tolerate back-talking, name calling, fighting or the petty drama that ten year old girls tend to thrive on, in his class.

He knew all of our parents and siblings by name.

He was a great teacher. I strove to get all A’s in his class, even though I had trouble with math and spelling that year. We all strove for greatness in his class. Not because he was sick, but because he believed in us. He believed we could be great. He believed in us. In turn, we believed in him. I’ve never since had that great of a teacher. I’ve had quite a few good ones, but none that I’d call great.

He did exactly what he said. He taught us for that last year and then he took off in an RV for nearly 18 months with his wife and two grown children. He lived in my neighborhood, so I saw him a few more times once they got back. Each time he looked more like an 80 year old man, than a man around 50. When he passed away, halfway through my 8th grade year, 700 people showed up at his funeral. 700 people. Family, friends, teachers, students old and young, showed up to pay their respects. They literally closed school that day.

20 years later and I remember him and that year, more than any school year prior. The man left his mark.