MANIFEST DESTINY

Years ago my academic career suffered a quick death in a “Lily-White” suburban school district, and through my own stubbornness, through my unwillingness to play the game, my unwillingness to wait by the phone and be used and abused as a substitute teacher, I peddled my wares in the inner city; my purgatory: teaching troubled kids from the Wayne County Youth Home.

A year later, with my teeth still intact, after numerous peer restraints on angry teenagers—“Circle up, take him down.”—I sought my rebirth in a Detroit Catholic school as a 7th grade English and religion teacher for the paltry sum of $18,000. Always one to speak my mind (some things never change), I learned from a man-of-the-cloth, the actual cousin of Guido Sarducci of Saturday Night Live fame, that my services would no longer be needed. In front of my peers at the end of the school year luncheon, he “wished me well.”

So here I am, in prison, just another working stiff surrounded by uncertainty, surrounded by skittle-craving wackadoodles; my goal: make it through another day, inch closer to retirement.

This week I volunteered to work with 7th graders in a middle school. I volunteer once a year, and it never fails, I’m assigned children with behavioral problems. “Why don’t you take little Johnny out in the hallway and help him.” Ah yes—out of sight, out of mind. Funny thing is: this year I wasn’t assigned to help anyone, yet I found myself gravitating toward the most disturbed, the most dysfunctional students in the classroom and you know what?—I thoroughly enjoyed every moment.

For those of you who haven’t viewed it before, here’s some video footage of my early teaching days in that “Lily-White” suburban school along with a prison graduation interspersed throughout. No need searching for me in the prison footage because I was the cameraman; I suggest you look for Charlie Manson instead.