“It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning ‘round.”
No clever exposition or movie/music selections tonight, kids. Sorry.
I found out tonight that Mr. Weitzel, my page school history teacher, passed away. He’d been struggling with cancer for the past two years, and had been in remission for a while before taking a turn for the worse again this past February. In a way, I’m grateful to be in DC right now, with pages around to talk with and (hopefully) a chance to attend his memorial service.
Still, I’m devastated.
I only had Ron Weitzel for a semester of US History due to a scheduling glitch that switched me out of my original section, but I was glad the mistake got made in retrospect. The man was legendary (perhaps even notorious to some) at the House Page School for unconventional teaching styles (he refused to teach wars, with the exception of Vietnam), his refusal to use textbooks, and penchant for killing trees to print off primary source documents, in many ways introducing us to the beloved college standby of the course pack a full two years early. His actual lessons, meanwhile, were often nothing short of performances, with him often flailing wildly around the room, gesturing and even going so far as to reenact moments he found particularly noteworthy. And may God help you if you managed to fall asleep in the middle of it all-he would remove you from class in an equally grand style. Through it all, he managed to facilitate passionate discussion and debate, pulling off nothing short of a miracle in the act of getting opinionated and oftentimes fiercely partisan students to sit and listen to one another as well as the sound of their own voices. His classes were not just lessons in history with facts and dates to memorize, but a guide to how citizens engaged and challenged their government over the years meant to inspire us to all do the same.
My favorite story about Mr. Weitzel’s class, however, involved my particular section of his American History class in the Spring of 2003. Though another scheduling anomaly, our section was composed entirely of male students. Before long, we had christened ourselves the Alpha Male class, and were often privy to excusive stories from Mr. Weitzel’s colorful past, as well as the occasional Krispy Kreme breakfast. But the most sacred privilege of all from being an Alpha Male stemmed from a series of lessons Mr. Weitzel did on jazz in American history. After a lesson on improvisational music which involved a tape of trumpet god Mr. Wynton Marsalis jamming with his bandmate Mr. Wycliffe Gordon on kazoos, we got it in our heads that we too needed to procure kazoos to practice this timeless American tradition. Before long, our kazoo experiment had evolved from mere improvisation into a full blown interpretive dance spectacle performed on the last day for our peers, with a chorus of kazoos playing “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey), save for the one Mexican kid banging on a trash can for percussion.
Sadly, my kazoo is sitting in the shoebox where I keep the miscellaneous artifacts from my page year. Had it been here, I’d be out on the patio now, serenading the Georgetown campus with its buzzing melodies in memoriam.
Instead, I’ll just say this: here’s to you, Mr. Weitzel. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you.