Dad’s time in the classroom and in the drivers education car eventually inspired more than visits and hugs from people whose lives he touched during those years. Recently, my family and several hundred of his former students and colleagues wrote up memories and anecdotes and drew illustrations to create a book, Park It!, that tells the story of his teaching career. My father’s students who contributed these stories represent four decades and several generations, generations that went from the McCarthy Era to the Vietnam War to the Watergate Scandal, from the beginning of the space age to the advent of personal computers. Yet consistently, whether in Dad’s class in the 1950s or the 1980s, what students remembered most fondly or valued most about him remained consistent across the years: his astonishing ability to be fair, consistent, principled, and calm.
And no doubt also, at one level or another, Dad always demonstrated to students that he cared about them, their education, and their lives. He didn’t stop caring either when he stopped teaching. Until he was 85 he volunteered in the local schools, and until he was 90 he volunteered at a nearby Veterans Hospital. All his life he remained what he never deliberately set out to be—to paraphrase one of the book contributors, the model of what a husband, father, teacher, and man should be.
Park It! is available as an e-book at Amazon.com and as a paperback at parkitvirtualmuseum.com.
And no doubt also, at one level or another, Dad always demonstrated to students that he cared about them, their education, and their lives. He didn’t stop caring either when he stopped teaching. Until he was 85 he volunteered in the local schools, and until he was 90 he volunteered at a nearby Veterans Hospital. All his life he remained what he never deliberately set out to be—to paraphrase one of the book contributors, the model of what a husband, father, teacher, and man should be.
Park It! is available as an e-book at Amazon.com and as a paperback at parkitvirtualmuseum.com.