graf#2

The worst teacher…
By far, the worst teacher I ever had was my seventh grade math teacher. Algebra, none of us in the class had ever done any of it. The most we knew how to do was long division, that was the furthest we got in sixth grade, aside from a little bit of fraction work. Our teacher knew that we didn’t have a clue and decided to pick me as the class guinea pig to start off the year with. The first day of class he put up on the marker board some crazy equation that I had never even seen before, or anyone else for that matter. Of course he picks me to go up in front of the class and try to solve this thing, absolutely clueless. I get up and find my place at the white board, grab a marker and give the board a blank stare, he say’s “Well come on, don’t ya know what your doin’”? At that time in my life I didn’t do the greatest in front of group of people, even though they were just as lost as I was. I panicked, quickly set the marker down and hurried back to my desk; I kept my mouth shut the rest of the day. We didn’t learn anything that day, just reviewed what the course was about.
From that day on, he didn’t refer to me as Tom, no it was Toooom. Very stretched out, as if to mock my stupidity. After a few weeks, my singled out experiences seemed to pass. He would pick on other students who didn’t have a clue what they were doing either, I’m sure they felt just as dumb as I did. None of us really learned much from his class, we all went on into eighth grade just as lost as we were when we started seventh grade.
After that I never liked doing math, it’s still my worst subject. It seems like that first day of seventh grade made me lose all interest in it, kind of ironic because my job requires a lot of it. By the way, that teacher was fired two years later for grabbing a student by the back of the head and slamming his face off the desk.

graf#1

My hands tell the story of my life, beaten from daily use and abuse in a machine shop. I have no feeling in the tip of my left index finger thanks to an extra sharp tool that I grabbed the wrong way on the wrong day. It’s kind of like having one of those little marshmallows stuck to your third knuckle and no matter what you do, you can never get it to do exactly what you want it to. Calluses on my hands glitter in light because of all the metal chips and splinters stuck in them, I rarely notice them. Recently they have been taking more abuse than normal, and it shows, I notice all the little sore spots from my house remodeling. One thing that really sticks out is my wedding band; mine doesn’t shine like my wife’s does. Mine is dull and dented, worn flat around the edges, and missing a small chunk from an impact wrench with a loose screw. I almost thought I would lose my finger when that happened, but I didn’t, just another gash that has now turned into a faded white scar. Now it’s back to work on the house for me, I’ll be clapping my hands when I’m done with that.