T-Minus Ten Days

For the past 30 years, I've been a teacher (though if you asked a teacher, they'd discount the past 8 years as a "coordinator" since I don't have a classroom per se...sort of like when I used to live in Santa Monica and go to the local Boston bar to watch the Patriots and Red Sox and when I told people there I'm from Concord, they'd laugh and say something like "That's nawt fahkin' Bawston!!!) The kids and the communities I've worked in are working class, mostly immigrant families. The parents clean homes, swing hammers, and many times do the work no one else will for wages that keep them busy six, sometimes seven, days a week. I'll miss the kids. They are generally good natured, quick with the stories, and for the most part inclined toward respect, though, like most inner city kids, can sense a teacher's apposition like a drop of ink in a bathtub. Javier (the protagonist of Gone To Ground) is a special breed, though most every classroom has one like him. I modeled most of my characters off real students, though, in the case of Enrique, he comes straight from The Outsiders. Shout out SE Hinton!