Looking Back----

   When I was in high school and prospects for attending any kind of college looked bleak indeed, because of financial constraints, there was one teacher who tried to help me find a way to continue my education.  He was my English teacher for 11th and 12th grades, and new to HVC in that first year, 1954-55.  He was young for one of our teachers, 28 years old, I think, and different from most of the old-timers in that he introduced us to sarcasm.  That first year, a number of students transferred out of his class, into Mrs. Hack's, because they were disturbed by his attitude, but, though I would never have acknowledged it at the time, I enjoyed what was then condsidered a somewhat edgy approach to the classroom.  English class was where I felt most secure, and the only high school class where I ever ventured an opinion.  I grew to enjoy the give and take of differences of opinion in discussions of literature, and did very well in the class, including the all-important English 11 Regents exam.  Mr. A. also conducted classes, an innovation at the time, attempting to prepare us for the New York State Scholarship Examination, as well as practice for College Entrance Exams which were then required of all college hopefuls.  I remember he asked me to stay after class one afternoon to tell me of the possibilities of "night school" which was then the only alternative if college expenses were out of reach.  Things were so different then.  I was flattered that he didn't want me to waste what he considered my intellectual talents, but even the thought of something called night school was overwhelming:  how the heck could I possibly get there?  My father was nearing retirement, he drove an unreliable old klunker of a car, and I was still years away from getting a driver's license.  As it turned out, both my sister and I won the prized and  rare at the time NYS Regents Scholarships, as had our brother the preceding year, so we were able to attend the tuition-free State University, but that's a tale for another time.
    The  English teacher who had endeavored to help me ended up marrying another teacher at the school and moving back to New York, where he became a Guidance Teacher, following his instincts as with my future, I guess.   I last spoke to him at one of our class reunions which he returned to attend with his wife.  He told me they had one little boy, named after him by reversal of his first and middle names, and who was enrolled in Catholic School.   That teacher is dead now, though his wife is still alive.  Both of them were good and decent people so there is no reason or justification for the terrible tragedy that befell them.  In 1987, their only child was sentenced to life in prison for a horrendous crime, one destined to be noted forever in the registry of such crimes.  Some things just should not happen.