Old-School Daze

Today, I gained entry into a storage area that was probably last entered by a human late in the previous century. I was on the hunt for a file divider for a drawer in my desk, and as I've aptly acquired the nickname The Moocher from my old buddy Sam over in Campus Stores, I was hoping to get it for free. Don't look at me like that, I'm trying to save you some tax dollars here. So far I've had no luck in getting Sam to sing "Minnie the Moocher" when I walk in, but I think I'm wearing him down. At any rate, he sent me on a snipe hunt in a remote corner of a dilapidated Quonset hut out in the weeds on the north forty of our facility, by the railroad trestle. 

The inside was hot and dusty, like the attic at grandma's house when you're looking for that picture from that time. It was like a graveyard of obsolete office supplies, with cases of typewriter ribbons and white-out stacked on wooden in/out trays, all awaiting the slow advance of entropy in forgotten silence. After a moment's awe at the spectacle, I started digging around, almost having forgotten what I came in for. I didn't find any dividers, though I came across an old warhorse Okidata printer and a million of those little hole-protectors for three-ring-binder paper. But the best part was the pencil sharpener.

It wasn't one of the electric ones that can reduce a Tioga #2 to sawdust in 1.3 seconds, but rather an old-school hand-crank Berol Giant, screwed straight into a bare stud on the open-framed wall. The spindle was rusted tight, and didn't turn anymore, which was disappointing because I wanted to watch the precision gears do their highly-specialized, but somehow feral work. On the plus-side, there were still desiccated shavings in the reservoir, and their faded aroma smelled like the ghost of 5th grade, when I would sharpen my pencil unnecessarily, just to get a hit off the ground-cedar fumes. And maybe to be just a little closer to Mr. Koepke, whom I idolized.

So, literally... Old-School. 

In looking at that sharpener I was reminded of the hilarious antics of Kara Millar, who used to go to the pencil sharpener in Mr. Arena's 7th grade Algebra class and slowly grind an entire, brand-new pencil all the way down to the eraser, just because she hated him. I think we all hated Mr. Arena, but she lacked the gene responsible for an aversion to detention, so she just went right on, no matter what he did. 

Mr. Arena was one of the few teachers I recall really disliking in school. Ms. Binci was another, but I'd have to try pretty hard to remember any others. Maybe if I broke out all of my yearbooks I could come up with another. Conversely, I could start at first grade with Miss Brimie's class at La Mesa Elementary in Monterey, CA and go all the way to Joe Perruccio's history class my Senior year at Long Beach Polytechnic, and rattle off a dozen that I really liked, right off the top of my head. 

Clockwise from top right: Paula Bentz, Carol Felize
Downtown Gary Brown, and Joe Perruccio

I still think of Miss Brimie as my first love; willowy Miss Brimie, unfailingly patient and kind, in whose class I lost my first tooth. She taught us to make bread and candles, so we'd be set for post-apocalyptic times. You'll want me on your team, believe me. We even grew our own lentils and then made soup from them. To this day, lentils are the same as love to me. But let's not talk about the serious paste-eating problem I had to kick after we finished the Thanksgiving Craft Fair.

I'm not sure if she was my favorite teacher of all time or not, though. The competition in the field is tough. Ms. Felice was a firecracker; she taught 8th grade science, and took a wicked delight in flames, goggles, and chemical reactions. In 7th grade, Mrs. Bentz gave me books to expand my mind, like "1984," "Old Man and the Sea," "Red Badge of Courage," and "Great Expectations." She even had me house-sit for her a few times. Ms. Thompson had a TV cued up to watch the launch of The Challenger live, and cried with us when tragedy struck before our eyes. For the love of her, I organized The Great Freshman Walkout of '86, and was suspended for three days as ringleader. The payoff was that I got to ask the Principal of Washington Junior High if I could see his permanent record. Neither he nor my Mom were amused, but I sure was. To this day, I still put that shit on my résumé when applying for jobs.

Jerold King

The list of the truly great ones goes on and on: Downtown Gary Brown had a certain stern, robotic charm that somehow generated affection in us, and made Geometry seem like an education in detective skills. Mr. King's noteworthy acting skills breathed scandalous subtext into the part of Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," making a living thing from the bones of dry words. Joe Perruccio taught me to drive, ended my brief flirtation with witchcraft, and caught a budding school shooter with his bare hands. 

Still, my favorite just might be Mr. Koepke. I guess I could call him Terry today, just as I could call Miss Brimie Pat. I'm officially recognized by both the State of Oregon and the Federal Government as an Adult, so I'm pretty sure it's allowed. But it still seems wrong somehow, you know? No, I think I'll carry on calling him Mr. Koepke the rest of my days. He was the kind of teacher who had found a job that would finance the holy calling on his life to mentor, enrich, and catalyze the life of kids. He was put on Earth to build minds, and propel little humans into a future they couldn't even imagine.

In my mind's eye I remember him being a kind of amalgam of Mr. Kotter and the Dead Poet himself, Robin Williams. He taught with his whole being; often imaginative, sometimes controversial, but always memorable.

Thanks to him, the Scholastic book catalogue and Arrow Book Club News were on par with the Spiegel's toy catalogue at Christmas. He and my Mom worked together to get the author Nancy Robison to come into our 5th grade class and do a reading from her book "The Other Place," which was like having J.K. Rowling do a Harry Potter scene. I was so star-struck.

Halloween, 1981, Mr. Koepke dressed up as the anonymous narrator from Poe's "The Telltale Heart," complete with wig, cloak, and ashen makeup. Then, lights off and blinds down, he read the complete text by guttering candlelight, with all the flair of a Broadway show. What we didn't know was that he had a student hiding over in the corner of the room under a desk who was making an increasingly insistent "bum-bump" sound of a heart, creating a truly haunting rendition of the story. Seriously, Vincent Price had nothing on Terry. Whoops! I mean, Mr. Koepke.

The theatricality and imagination with which he taught was absolutely mesmerizing, but he excelled in other ways as well. He invented a game he called Boomer Bat that allowed even the worst athletes (right here!) to compete, while still remaining super-fun for the rest of the class. If it was up to him, no one was ever left out or made to feel "less than." If Mr. Rogers had a Gothic streak in him, I think he and Mr. Koepke would have gotten on like gangbusters. 

But perhaps most importantly, Mr. Koepke trusted us. Throughout the year we worked our way through Judy Blume books, from "Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing" and "Superfudge" to "Forever." That last one was a sexual coming-of-age story, full of complicated, nuanced emotions, and some risqué elements, which I think my parents would have objected to, had they known. Perhaps even to the ABC Afterschool Special he showed in class about teens and family alcoholism, called "She Drinks a Little." Even at ten years old, I could tell that Mr. Koepke was pushing the boundaries of what might be deemed appropriate, but it also seemed like he was endorsing us as mature and emotionally complex enough to grasp the ideas, and rise to the level of what he expected of us. So we did. I can't describe how important that made me feel.

Today, thirty five years later, a whiff of pencil-shavings in an abandoned store-room at the University where I work brought back the world of Mr. Koepke and all the great teachers I've had over the course of my life, and I was filled with such gratitude. We are largely the sum of our experiences, and I feel so blessed to have been cared for and attended to by these giants, and allowed to stand on their shoulders all of my days. It made me realize how many educators there are in my family and the circle of my friends. College professors, special education, elementary, and high school teachers. Even a Principal (Whose permanent record I would dearly love to see). I was suddenly in awe of the company that I keep, and filled with a desire to buy school supplies. 

And so it's to each of them that this bit of bonhomie is dedicated. I would send you all a boquet of sharpened pencils if I could. Because as the turning of the leaves and the advent of Fall sends you back to the hallowed halls, I admit that I don't envy you the stress, criticism, underfunded-and-overworked status of your daily life, but there is something I absolutely envy you. A life that matters, like no other. I wonder who will be thinking about you thirty-five years from now, and saying to themselves that they never would have made it without you. 

Because thanks to a Berol Giant pencil sharpener in the Secret Tomb of Forgotten Office Supplies, I followed my nostalgic little heart way down amnesia lane and learned today that Mr. Terry Koepke has a plaque at Camp Hi-Hill, in the Angeles National Forest, to honor him. It reads: "Teacher, Conservationist, Friend to All."

That's damn straight.