And In Other Unpredictable News of Adult-Life Impossibilities Resulting from Childhood Friendships, I Had a Wonderful ZOOM Session Yesterday.

I'm still 14. We're still playing wiffleball. We're also laughing that Mrs. Caroli is yelling PETER BOY at 8 p.m. to come inside to get ready for school. She was a teacher and her son, Peter, would become a teacher just like her daughter, Elaine. Our dads worked together in Utica and Syracuse, and many of my childhood memories are in their house, or mine, listening to the papas biotching about work. Of course, the fathers were also little league coaches and our moms would have a very unhealthy relationship with a soap opera called Days of Our Lives. They would unite all throughout their adulthood gossiping about Marlena, Roman, Bo, Hope, and whatever it was the Hortons did.

Fast forward to age 54. This summer, before the semester ended, I ran into Mrs. Caroli who was putting their house on the market. Big Pete passed a couple of years ago and the house was too big for her now. She decided to return to her sisters and her friends closer to Utica. She seemed very happy with her decision, even if I was sad to know that the Caroli house would no longer be the Caroli house...it's always been the Caroli house and it was my home away from home while growing up. And I think of Papa Pete regularly.

Rewind. Peter Boy got married while I was teaching in Japan, so I missed his wedding. I also missed that he became a teacher and later a reading specialist in Liverpool (the bastard retired this week at age 55. Jerk. Actually, super happy for him). We'd occasionally see each other on throughout the years on holidays. The great thing about childhood friends is you stay connected for life. It's the unconditional stuff, like family, and those of our childhood crew can't help but reach out to one another from time to time when we think about growing up together....especially the sports on Duncowing.

That is why it was wonderful that Peter reached out to me the other day to put me in contact with his youngest daughter, Julianna, an English major at LeMoyne College who is on track to enter the teaching profession. She had questions and was seeking advice. We texted for a week and I instantly realized, "This is a smart human who has tremendous agency for her learning." We set up a ZOOM and spent an hour yesterday talking shop. I remember being in the same space as her (and might argue I'm still in that space). 

I kept thinking, too, "Oh, I'm speaking to a female Peter Boy....decades later from when we were her age." Wild. And so amazing to pick up an adult conversation with the offspring of a kid I used to pal with...it's like there were no beats missing. It was wonderful to talk about all the Carolis, my memories, our childhood, and the education program at LeMoyne (as my nephew is in it now and will be student teaching in the Spring). 

I remember doing the University of Louisville program and scratching my head at how different it was from the undergraduate English major. The education classes seemed disconnected from what I wanted to learn, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to teach and deal with the $#@$. I finished the program, however, had a great experience, but held back a couple more years to get a 2nd Masters, because I wasn't sold on the teaching gig part. I wanted more of an English-major feel. Ah, I did my 2nd masters between English and KIESD (the Kentucky Institute for Education and Sustainable Development. I did end up eventually teaching and had a wonderful time with it; of course, that was in the age of writing portfolios and teacher autonomy. I was the Brown, too. It was bliss. I remained a lucky of Son of a Butch.

I also remember that mentors at U of L would put me in contact with others like me and Julianna, Peter's daughter - the types of students who love learning, being good students, and absorbing what the world has to offer. When you first encounter education courses you're like, "Why would anyone pay for this?" I know that sounds strange, as I teach such courses, but I hope my students don't say that about my teaching. My #1 asset as an educator is the content knowledge I accrued from never being out of school, really. It's the drive to learn as much as possible (which varies for many who work in schools of education who simply teach teacherly things). It's the reason why the word pedantic exists.

There's that saying that those that can't, teach. My friends and I at University of Louisville used to say, "Well, those that really can't teach, teach teachers how to teach." They weren't that bad, but the pedagogical silliness often was. It wasn't the in-depth subject area knowledge any longer, but stuff you really can't learn unless you're in a school working with students. Ah, but universities have a way of profiting off the inexperience of their students. 

Even with my own students, I often am in meetings where the pedantic nature of required coursse drive them batty (well, the other courses they take). They want more subject material...depth...opportunities. It comes with the upper-level courses, but you have to survive the surface level ones, first. And teaching secondary is different, because you need expertise for what you're talking about.

So, it was a wonderful evening, thinking about childhood, parents, neighborhoods, professions, the pace of a life time, and the wonder of human connectivity.  I talked to Peter Boy, Jr. in female form (and I know big Pete and Stephanie are running through her veins, too). 

It all put tremendous joy in my heart and I hope we see it continued. 

I'd also like to say, "Dang, Peter-Boy. Retired?" I wish I was that lucky! He earned it and I'm ready to say the same.