Star Trek IV premiered shortly after my half birthday in 1986, just before Thanksgiving. I was 22 and one half years old. A newly minted Northwestern graduate, I had just taken a job in Deerfield teaching theatre and English. I had moved to a little apartment off of Route 176 behind the Silo Pizzeria. I didn’t know that Spock’s voyage home, his reunion with himself and his family would be an apt metaphor for the start of a long fulfilling journey, although not into space, but into school.
My experience as a middle school student had been difficult. A late arrival into a small class with highly defined cliques, I struggled to find my place. I struggled to find my self as well. High school was a wonderful release from the difficulties and provided the opportunities to explore in new ways. Then, my senior year, my high school merged with the other school in the district and everything changed. It was as if my home had been destroyed and my friends dispersed. The Enterprise exploded.
College was a great experience and a completely new universe. I boldly went where I had never gone before. I performed in musicals. I tried directing television. It was high school on steroids and things were wonderful.
At the end of my college career, I had the privilege of student teaching at Niles North High School. There I found nurturing and wonderful mentors and students willing to teach a very young and green teacher. I accidentally graduated early and taught briefly at a middle school in Evanston before being hired at Deerfield.
My brief stint as a middle school teacher had been challenging, and as students filed into my first high school theatre class, I felt something I had almost forgotten. Deerfield was about the size of my high school before the merger. It was demographically similar, too. I was the youngest staff member in the building, and I discovered that I had inherited a bevy of aunts, uncles, and surrogate parents. And the students were as welcoming and understanding as those I had met at Niles.
I had come home. I didn’t even know it.
I had not died saving my best friend. I had not left my soul in another person, and Dame Judith Anderson hadn’t put her hands all over my face. It just felt that way.
I worked hard at Deerfield. I still do. I averaged work weeks that were easily fifty or more hours in the building. I went home, ate, slept, and came back. And then, during my third year at DHS, I met my a very special person, and we began a relationship. Shortly thereafter, I was offered a job teaching at my alma mater. A friend from Northwestern called me and suggested that I apply, and on a whim, I did. After a series of difficult and odd interviews, I was offered the position, which would have been new territory for me, and a chance to use some of the skills I had developed while earning my new degree.
But Deerfield had become home. I was now engaged to that special person. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. Soon, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. My wife and I found a little home in Deerfield, and soon after, decided our children would make our high school theirs.
Now, we didn’t sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” or go on a journey to find God. While my brother did have a unique way of doing things, he was not looking for my pain. I hope that Star Trek V is never a metaphor for my life.
And like, in late 1987, as I ran around the auditorium, getting ready for a performance of the student variety show, watching a tiny TV in a corner so I could watch the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had journeyed home and now it was time for my next generation.
So as we move from Thanksgiving into the winter holidays, I am so grateful to have found my home, my family, and been able to bring my next generation to DHS. And as my mission starts to close, I am forever grateful for how all the pieces of my life have so wonderfully come together.
Deerfield continues to be my home, and will be, even after my retirement – my adventure continues.
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