I was trying to explain to my wife why I was cracking up during the serious parts of the musical that we were watching last weekend. We sat in the audience with the other families, friends, co-workers, strangers, and community members enjoying an excellent performance of the musical “Big Fish.” The cast was populated by […]
Category Archives: Teachers
Infamous Gigs: My First Time on Stage
You know, I wasn’t always going to be a musician and performer. It took a couple of excellent teachers who saw potential in me to give me the courage to discover one of my greatest passions, and even then it was almost a disaster. When I was in 8th grade, the high school was auditioning […]
Names You Call Your Mother-in-Law
I met my mother-in-law when I was in high school at best, though it may have been middle school. Like all adults those days, I called her Mrs. with her last name. My kids’ friends do not call me by my last name today; they use my first name just like everyone else. But back […]
I Hope His Teacher Likes Baymax…
Uh oh. The last days of school are winding down before Christmas break, which means we are heading into the dangerous waters of…(dun dun duuuuuuuuuunnnnnnn!) teacher gifts. When I was a kid, we had one teacher, and we brought them one gift. It was often something terrible that either we made, or got for $5 […]
Music is the First to Go
It is school budget voting day today here in Burlington. Again. Voters previously rejected the school budget, so now we have to vote on version 2. And a lot of things have happened since version 1. For one thing, we have many new school board members. We didn’t just reject the budget, but the folks […]
Microwaves are Not the Same as Stoves, or How I Ruined a Parent Teacher Conference
When my parents got divorced, I took over a lot of responsibilities as man of the house. Despite being only eight years old at the time, I took this very seriously and I was given a lot of well-earned responsibility. At first, after school would end, my siblings and I would all end up at […]
The Impact of a Bad Teacher
When I was in elementary school, my mother fought hard for me to be in advanced classes. Generally all children were supposed to be learning the same things, but I wasn’t learning anything and I was bored. Luckily I had some great teachers who taught me from books that were a grade ahead. I was […]