Charlie’s Lifetime Teacher Awards

I feel it is absolutely necessary to reward those individuals who chose a career with no growth potential or monetary incentive, specifically the teaching profession. And to top it off, they have to deal with the array of sick-twisted students from all walks of life, year after year. So today, I would like to honor my teachers from the past for their extraordinary contributions in molding the ‘monster’ individual you all know and adore. I told you the word “monster” will be used heavily to substitute all adjectives.

We moved around during grammar school (or grade 1-8 for you home-schooled individuals). But the moves were to adjacent towns. So let’s begin with this ripe educational time period.

1) Ms. Assacione – 2nd Grade – for making me “wash my mouth out” at the water fountain for cussing in Spanish. Of course, I had no clue what it was I was saying. I was merely repeating what 99% of the class was yelling. The town was like 93% Latino. Now that I think back, I don’t think she even knew what I was saying. Wait a minute…
2) Ms. Grainey – 5th & 8th Grade – for playing favorites when it came to me. It showed me that the world is all about scratching each others back. She protected me from the pitfalls of “failure notices” and gum-chewing in class. I got away with murder in her class. She sorta reminded you of your grandma.
3) Ms. Roos – 6th Grade – for making me a man! She was hot. And I guess I reached puberty when I joined her class. Thinking back, throughout all of grammar school, my lowest grades were in her class. Enough said.
4) Ms. Leone – 7th Grade – for teaching me that polygamy was OK and there was nothing wrong with having two boyfriends or girlfriends at the same time. She ended up marrying another teacher from my school the next year. Anyways, she would always tell me stories of who she was going out with, and why people need to just shut the * up about love and all that ish. In her words, that’s just “bullocks!” She was genius I tell you.

Moving onwards, I made it to that place we all hold dear in our hearts, high school! Ahhh…..high school…appropriately named. This was a fantastic period for everything. Learning, making trouble, skipping class, detention, etc. Plenty of teachers from this time period deserve an award, but I am very selective in giving these out, so here goes…

5) Mr. Komar (9 – 12, yup all 4 years) – Russian I, II, III, and IV. Award for teaching me this fantastic language which I have never used in my life. I barely remeber anything, but it’s great going up to people and telling them you speak Russian. I mean I could make anything up and they would believe it was truly Russian. Even the Russians respond to my jibberish. So thank you Mr. Komar, for teaching me this not-so-pretty language of love.
6) Mr. Dean – English – for teaching me to see beyond the words. Or as he would drill into me “peel the onion.” I guess it is from him that I learned how to see the secondary meaning behind certain words, or stories, or whatever. It was just cool, that’s it.
7) Mr. Gilbarty – Science – for allowing me to be one of a few (5) participants in the Hudson County Science Fair 2 years in a row. Took home the Bronze Medal two years in a row! Let’s see, the first year I worked on “Obesity”, and the second year on the “Tension on Suspension Bridges. Those rascals had nothing on me! Though, I always get the feeling that Mr. Gilbarty had something to do with me winning those medals. Nah! It had to be my super-duper analysis and research presentation.
Ms. XYZ? – Advanced Biology – I can’t believe I forgot her name. But she was my Advanced Biology teacher and she rocked. I was very candid with her. I once told her I had a crush on one of the girls in the class (of course, I was being tactful here knowing full well what I was doing). In about a week, this girl was my new Biology partner. She was cool, and we quickly became friends and next thing you know, we were “going out.” Yeah…like a couple and ish. I remember the first time I kissed her, it weirded me out. It felt like I was kissed my sister (not literally, but you know what I mean). We ended up being a couple for only a week. Thank you Ms. XYZ? for the “A” considering I didn’t know a lick about red blood cells.

And then came the days of wearing sweats to class and living of day-old pizza. The university. I went to Drexel University in Philadelphia. The winners for this time period are…

9) Dr. Riggs – Literature – for acting out and using different voices for every character in our literature class. This guy was cool! I remember he read Oedipus out loud in front of the class and played every character himself. It was like going to a Broadway play. The guy really knew how to keep you awake for the late-night class. 6-9pm. That’s monster!
10) Mrs. Sandberg – Risk Management – for teaching me the basics of portfolio investments and how to perform stock valuations. No one could have done it better than her. She was the inspiration that allowed me to complete my Finance major so easily. Also, she wrote my recommendation to London School of Economics (MS), though I never made it out of the states. Another thing that was cool about her was that she had her own plane. She would tell us about her weekend trips to New Hampshire and ish. It would go something like this…..”Oh, so the hubby and I decided to go to Maine over the weekend, we took the plane out and then just parked it in the back-yard.” Now, that’s MONSTER!

So that’s it! Yes. After 16 years of schooling, I have carefully selected the winners of Charlie’s Lifetime Teacher Awards. It was competitive and the decisions were difficult, but these are the people that shaped who I am today. So if you like the person you see, you can thank these extraordinary individuals. Thank you teachers, for putting up with my debauchery and ranting over the years. You truly deserve better contracts!

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Posted by Charlie P on Feb 10 2005. Filed under Entertainment, Headline, Lists, Live, Play, Sex + Women, Sports, Stories, Style, Travel + Places, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry