So I would often find myself eating my sack lunch right there, a few feet from Mr.Valerio. As I ate I would watch him unfold a napkin and lay it on his lap, then proceed to eat his sardines and occasionally I would try to shock him by saying, "Did you know that you're not really eating Sardines?"
"Really? What am I eating?"
"It depends on the company and where they get their fish. But you're eating a herring or a pilchard probably. Sardine is just a generic term used for weird little fish they put in those cans."
"Fascinating," he would chuckle. "And what are you having?"
"A peanut butter sandwich with potato chips inside of it. Then, some Cheetos and a cookie. Oh, and Kool-Aid."
"Did you know those Cheetos don't really have cheese on them?'
"They have Cheese flavoring," I would say.
"Oh, I see."
We would stare at each other pretending to be mad until one of us would break character and laugh. I didn't really mind being in there. Mr.V, as we would often refer to him, was nice to me. He would let me watch the News with him as I ate. I appreciated it since all my other teachers up until then did not seem to like me very much. Some of them even called me names or told me I was useless.
See, I was the kind of student who might do a silly face when everyone was being serious or sing a sentence from my social studies book operatically. This was something most teachers found unacceptable. Mr.V, on the other hand, said that the way I read was really good and got the other kids to pay attention. He said my ability to disrupt the class was matched only by my ability to guide it.
I could be a real pain in the ass, though. My hyperactive nature coupled with voices and impressions would interrupt things like Math tests, spelling bees and Mr.V's random stories. One time, when I was being especially difficult for Mr.V he called me up to his desk and whispered a proposition.
"If you can stay relatively quiet when I need you to for the rest of the day, I will let you do your routine for the last 10 minutes of class."
I got him to postpone the deal until the next day as I had already begun my disruption for today and was already "In the zone." Also, I wanted 15 minutes. Not 10. We shook on it & when I went home that night, I prepared my material for the next day. Mom and I wrote down 38 names of celebrity, cartoon and world leader impersonations I could do onto little pieces of paper and threw them into a brown paper bag. This way, my 38 classmates could draw a paper from the bag, tell me who they drew & feel like they were involved and important to the process even though, they were clearly not.
"I don't want them to feel left out," I told Mr.V and he laughed.
The routine went over well, as things that interrupt school work often do with children. My classmates were even nice about the imitations depicting people they had never heard of. And Mr.V allowed me to perform regularly if I behaved which was, admittedly, rare. But on those days, man, I felt great. Coming home happy was rare and resulted in the unusual occurrence of being asked the following question:
"What did you learn in school today, Son?"
"Um....The other kids don't know who Nixon is. Also, they are confused about who Jimmy Stewart is. A couple people thought he was a football player."
"Well, that's okay," Dad would say, "Not everybody knows what everything else is."
I hated this fact but, Dad was right.
Not everybody knows everything.
Some people thought being silly was useless.
Others thought that a kid who simply needed some guidance was a bad seed.
And a really great guy who cared about me thought that somewhere out in the ocean there swam a fish called the Sardine.
written by Tony Santiago, all rights reserved
I'm glad Mr. V. recognized your genius. Sign of a good teacher...even if he did eat supposed sardines.
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