#13: To River Oaksians and Ecolegiates with Love. June 21, 2019

This Goes Out to ALL of My Ex-students of River Oaks Academy plus those at Ecole Classique who I now add. Ecole people, just change a few of the names; my feelings for you are as strong.

Regardless of where I taught you, I Write These Words with Great Memories in My Mind, Great Love in My Heart, and a Humungous Lump in My Throat. 

Honestly, I have no idea where this message will go, but I do know how it will begin.

THANK YOU.  THANK YOU ALL.

Honestly, I have been smiling for the past three days as the number of ROA friends on FB has grown.  To be frank, many of you I did not remember, …until I saw your names.  Then, I instantly had a flashback of each and every one of you.  Just snapshots through which I could hear your voices too.  So cool.

Thanks to the catalyst that is Facebook, I can see and hear you all again together and as individuals.  I see you walking down the halls and across the breezeway, in the lunchroom and waiting impatiently to talk with Ms Wanda Sullivan.  I see you at the football games and the Friday pep rallies as A.V. Cousins implored you to “Blow the roof off this place!”  I see you at each Beauty Pageant and graduation and can never forget the annually initial “Presentation of the Court and Escorts” as you did your high school best to be elegant and gallant while walking upon a basketball court.

Best of all for me, I see you each sitting in my classroom.  Honestly, as I read each name and look at your faces (So many of you look the same, just a bit “wiser with age”) and I know where you sat in the room and what your favorite outfits were to wear.  I see you listening to me and remember so many of your presentations and our class discussions.  I can actually hear your laughter, and hear you crumpling up pages of paper in essay rage and frustration.  You guys (and girls) made some classic faces back then.

So thanks.  I thank you all for the memories and your kind words.

As for me, I taught at Ecole Classique in Metairie for about a decade and then headed overseas to teach.  I’d always wanted to see the world and live anywhere but home, so I quit my job spur of the moment and then had no choice but to get a job somewhere in the world.  It was a ballsy risk that paid off.

Other than a five-year teaching stint in Carrollton, GA. where I now live, I have lived and taught in international schools in the Middle East and East Asia.  Ain’t nothing like it.

Honestly, being challenged by so many students from so many varied cultures made me a much better teacher and person.  To be succinct, I can teach so much better than when you knew me, and I can tell you stories that you will not believe.

The smartest move I made in each country was no to hang out with the other American, Canadian, and European teachers.  Instead, I met and hung out with the locals.  Hell, I figured, “If I’d have wanted to hang out with people like me, I’d have stayed home.”  As a result I got to experience a ton of shit that other foreigners are unaware of—the good, the bad, the ugly. 

Regardless, my last ex-pat post was in LongDong, Guangzhou, China.  I was there for eight years and loved it.  In December 2017, I was a man on top of the world and had it all.  By the first week in March 2018, everything had crashed—all within a three-week period.

  Details are too complicated, too convoluted, and too incredulous.  I won’t elaborate except to say that a rare physical condition has made it impossible for me to teach in the classroom any longer. 

I want to teach, I belong in a classroom, I am not ready to retire; I love teaching.  You all know that.  I simply can no longer do it physically anymore. 

Still, I am a teacher.  I always will be, …a teacher of English and of life.  Right?  

From your comments on FB, you seem to agree.

I was forced into retirement a year ago.  But I am not a quitter; I am a teacher.  My son Joseph, who was a toddler when you knew me, helped me set up a website of my own so that I can still teach online if not in the classroom.

It is different, but through Skype and WeChat it’s pretty cool for one on one teaching. And I have discovered that I can still teach my ass off–online too.

My first student couldn’t write a paragraph when we met.  Two weeks and 6.5 class hours later, she was turning in solid 4-5 paragraph essays.  Cha-Ching, Saints fans.

My problem now is still intense boredom.  I need more students to allay this ennui and malaise.  (Hey, if you had studied your vocab back in the 80s, you wouldn’t have to look up these words now.)

I have “too much time on my hands,” as Styx sang back in the day.  I do spend my time writing some stories and answering the mostly idiotic questions on quora.com.  Check out Quora, it can be fun. 

Sometimes my Quora answers are far too smart-assed and get deleted pretty quickly.  But what the hell do I care, I am dying after all.

There I said it.  Yes, I came home to die. 

Don’t anyone, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU EXPRESS PITY OR SORROW.  That will only piss me off.  Then my lower lip will tremble, …or so I was told back then.

Hey, it could happen this week or ten years from now.  The “experts” all agree on that; they also agree that there’s not a damned thing that can be done.  I’m dying—but, we all are. 

Honestly, when the three conferring doctors gave me this terminal report back at the beginning of March, my only shoulder-shrugging reaction and my words to them were, “What the fuck…?  I have lived better than most people, now it’s time to die better than most.”

This has been my attitude and my hard-headed determination since then.  It’s just so damned boring and frustrating not to teach.  Hell, online has turned out to be good, but not as good as classroom teaching.  It’s certainly not the same as teaching you.

I have a lot more info to relate, but this has gone on long enough.  I leave you a few closing thoughts.

Again, do not feel sorry for me.  That is something I cannot accept nor tolerate.  As I said, I have lived better than most people. 

You all are living proof of that.  I am proud of you, …each and every one.  It seems I made some wise investments 30+ years ago.  Seeing your success, your smiles among family and friends, your happiness, tells me that I invested more wisely than Bill fucking Gates.

Thank you for proving me right.

With Love, Pride and Respect,

Paul