The name of the book is You Can’t Go Home Again. And for me that may be right.
I returned to Hueneme High in the fall of ’91, and began to teach Drama, even produced a pretty good production of Romeo and Juliet, taught English… married Lisa, bought a house, had a son, and lost my mentor, when Terry Taylor succumbed to cancer in my third year there.
And after five years at the alma mater, I left the classroom. Much of the rationale is outlined in an earlier blog (somewhat fictionalized… shite from a bull… who’s fooling who here… all I did was change some names): Journal of a Short-Timer.
I took a one year leave of absence that stretched to forever (or at least 13 years where it stands today). Within six months of leaving teaching, I was making as much as after 10 years in the classroom. And doing what? you may ask.
Building web sites.
self-loathing alert!
Not changing the world. Not educating the future. Nothing noble. I was an HTML slave. A whore who went with the money.
In the intervening years, I’ve built some applications for education entities, but the bottom line is: I took myself out of the game and onto the sidelines, where I’ve stood and watched.
I’ve taught some tech classes, and while they’ve been fun, it’s not Shakespeare, it’s just not that important.
I’ve presented to Kyle’s junior high English class, and it was great… but it was only an oasis in an otherwise damned dismal desert.
And so this begins.
Even if no one joins in on the fun (or the discussion), I’m gong to do this, teach myself, and have some fun doing it.
T-Minus two days to the beginning of our grand experiment. And as Alan Shepard says in The Right Stuff:
Let’s light this candle.