Memorizing My Lines

More than a few years ago, a former student returned to school to participate in a special program. Afterward, I gave him a tour of the new sections of the building that were constructed since he graduated, more than fifteen years prior. As we walked around, he quoted the little things I say in class. I was amazed at his memory. I was shocked that many of them I still say and that many of them I had forgotten, even though they came right back when he said them. Most of all, I was surprised at how these little lines stayed with him. More than a decade and a half after class had ended, he remembered my jokes, puns, plays on words, and silly sayings.

This past year, one student had to endure me three times a day. We had Freshman English, Theatre Advisory, and Homeroom together! It wasn’t long until this student began to do impressions of me. In fact, this student began to use my lines at the same time I would start to say them! The poor child got a triple dose of these “Hirschisms,” and shockingly, they stuck!

I suppose we all do this. We have our regular routines: the things we like to say in certain situations. With classroom teachers, however, it is a more complex. I get a fresh set of vict- students every year. Your family will roll their eyes when you use the same line constantly. My students do the same thing, but then new ones come along and I get to start all over! You can’t do that with your family or co-workers!

My lines are not static. Granted, there are a few (or more than a few) that are older than the students in my room, but some fade out and others rotate in. Some are very much connected to specific circumstances: a particular room, course, book, unit, or group of students. Others are timeless and multi-purpose!

For a little while, I have been harvesting my lines, and I made a list of them. I want to explore what they are saying about teaching, learning, my students, and me. They capture an interesting aspect of the experience I share with students. As the new school year begins, I want to think about how these silly sayings shape our experience together.

So, former students out there, what do you remember? What has stuck with you? I have my list but I will give extra credit bonus points if you send me a line that is not on my list. Email me, please!

No, I am not going to write about all of them. That would take far too much time. Some of them look different now than they did then; others are not for publication. Some require too much context and explaining to make sense. There are even a few that baffle me!

Right now, my list has around eighty sayings. That feels both like a lot and like very few. What do you remember? Let me know!  

Waiting for the Van to Go

With the impending arrival of our second child, my wife and I decided that we needed a larger vehicle. We needed to be able to schlep kids, grandparents, strollers,  and lots of other stuff. So we became yet another suburban minivan family.

Long before a minivan was in our future, my wife had agreed that, should we ever get one, I could decorate it as a Star Trek style shuttlecraft. We did and, when they got older, my kids called it the nerdmobile. I loved my unique vehicle and the adventures we had in it!  

Our first van lasted about seven years. The second one is in its fourteenth year.  I drove car pools, took kids to and from overnight camp, went on road trips, and moved furniture, bikes, and everything in-between.

When I turned fifty, I bought myself a car and the van lost its place in the garage. It sits on the driveway. By that point, our younger child was driving, so it was convenient to have a third car. He could not get away with poor driving because everyone in our community recognized our special van!

Today, the van is parked in the driveway and is rarely driven. It got a few weeks of use when that younger child came home. We used it to take him to college. My wife used it when she took a few of her friends to Wisconsin. But most of the time, it sits there, waiting.

It waits for an occasion. It waits to be full of loud laughter again.  It waits for another carpool or baseball game. It waits for the kids to come home. Me, too.

And that may be why I am so reluctant to let it go. Selling the van means facing the fact that those days are over.  Of course, I have had to pay a lot of money to fix it when things go wrong. Older cars are much like older people; they need repairs regularly.

Yet, that isn’t the key issue. Although I would love to say I am hanging on to it because it is a special decorated Star Trek car, that isn’t the truth either. Selling the van is the end of an era. It says that the nest is empty. It says that the kids really live elsewhere. It says that our family’s childhood is over and it is time to move on.

It is, and I have such mixed feelings about that.  

I rationalize the issue: even though we don’t drive the van much, it is nice to have a third vehicle when the kids are here. When one of the cars is in the shop, it is great to have a spare. Several friends have needed it. I use the van to take my Sunday school kids on field trips a few times a year. See, I need a van! I really do!

This summer, both kids came in for a visit. My folks joined us and we took the whole troupe downtown for a play and dinner. Once again, we rode together in the van. It was our family room on wheels again, possibly for the last time.

That is the truth the van’s presence in the driveway obscures. There are fewer and fewer times that the entire clan is together. There are no more car pools or school dances. No teams or casts or friend groups need a ride to the party. I haven’t been a minivan dad for a long time.

I enjoy driving my car. It has some fancy features that were not available when I bought the van. My son prefers driving the “new” car to the van. It has a great sound system, he says.

So I am researching selling the van. It will seek new worlds, and so will we. All of us will boldly go where we have not gone before: the next stage of development for our little family.