Memories of Mr. D
The other day I happened by chance to quote to a coworker a joke from my 11th grade (AP US) history teacher, Anthony "Tony" DiDonato, or "Mr. D" to the kids: "That was two-thirds of a pun: P - U."
I think it really goes to show how big an impact a teacher has had on you if you can still quote them more than 12 years later. I also credit Mr. D with being the first teacher to truly teach me the five-paragraph essay format.
I then started remembering some of his other obiter dicta: "Money is just blips on a hard drive" and "Maturity is the process of going from pigheaded certainty to thoughtful uncertainty." (The Interwebs claim this latter one is a quote from one Barbara Johnson, who used "cocksureness" instead of "pigheaded certainty".) My high school friends and I constantly played card games, prompting Mr. D to tell us one day, "Proficiency at cards is the sign of a misspent youth."
I remember one of his stories about his early years as a teacher at Charlotte Catholic HS, back in the '70s or '80s. He'd grown up up North -- Philly, I think -- and was used to being surrounded by various harmonious ethnic Catholic communities. Then he moved down South to teach at a Catholic school, and one afternoon, after only a few days teaching there, he found that his car tires had been slashed and that the word "WOP" had been written all over the hood and windshield. My classmates and I were so innocent of these old-school ethnic slurs that we had to ask him what that meant. Presumably it was his students who vandalized his car, though I have to wonder how many non-Italian Catholics were attending CCHS back then, anyway.
Another Mr. D story: one day, an alum came to visit, and the kids got to talk among themselves while Mr. D caught up with his former student, who was now at a college in an ROTC program. "So," the alum said, "a single hand grenade in here would wipe out the top ten percent of the junior class, eh?" Mr. D gamely answered that he supposed it would. My dad (an ex-military man) later confirmed for me that military types often think in terms of blast radii.
A final story, from a friend of mine who was in the class below me: while I was in high school, a mega shopping complex not too far away had just opened up. No doubt oblivious of the irony, the developers named it "The Arboretum", despite the fact that they had leveled dozens of acres of woodland to make the place. Anyway, its novelty made it a somewhat popular place for high school kids to go cruising. (Recall that there's not much to do in Charlotte, NC.)
So, one Friday afternoon, as everyone's happily chatting to each other, Mr. D breaks in and says, "So, what are you guys doing this weekend? Cruising in the Arbo, perhaps?" Bemused, the class replied, "Mr. D, what's the Arbo?" He tut-tutted them. "You know, the Arboretum! That's what you call it, isn't it?"
And from that day forth, it was.
I Googled Mr. D's name later that day and found my high school's alumni newsletters (which I'd long since ceased to get, after so many moves) were available online as PDFs. I read through them for updates of my old classmates: lots of announcements of weddings and births, but also the occasional item about Fulbright fellowships, law firm partnerships, and various other things to make us all green with envy. I suddenly wondered what my updates to the alumni newsletter would be.
uzbradistan, '96, ate the whole bag of chips, even after he promised himself he wouldn't.
uzbradistan, '96, recently beat his personal best at WordTwist in Facebook after playing more than 250 straight games.
uzbradistan, '96, still hasn't seen the new Batman movie, if you can possibly believe it.
I think it really goes to show how big an impact a teacher has had on you if you can still quote them more than 12 years later. I also credit Mr. D with being the first teacher to truly teach me the five-paragraph essay format.
I then started remembering some of his other obiter dicta: "Money is just blips on a hard drive" and "Maturity is the process of going from pigheaded certainty to thoughtful uncertainty." (The Interwebs claim this latter one is a quote from one Barbara Johnson, who used "cocksureness" instead of "pigheaded certainty".) My high school friends and I constantly played card games, prompting Mr. D to tell us one day, "Proficiency at cards is the sign of a misspent youth."
I remember one of his stories about his early years as a teacher at Charlotte Catholic HS, back in the '70s or '80s. He'd grown up up North -- Philly, I think -- and was used to being surrounded by various harmonious ethnic Catholic communities. Then he moved down South to teach at a Catholic school, and one afternoon, after only a few days teaching there, he found that his car tires had been slashed and that the word "WOP" had been written all over the hood and windshield. My classmates and I were so innocent of these old-school ethnic slurs that we had to ask him what that meant. Presumably it was his students who vandalized his car, though I have to wonder how many non-Italian Catholics were attending CCHS back then, anyway.
Another Mr. D story: one day, an alum came to visit, and the kids got to talk among themselves while Mr. D caught up with his former student, who was now at a college in an ROTC program. "So," the alum said, "a single hand grenade in here would wipe out the top ten percent of the junior class, eh?" Mr. D gamely answered that he supposed it would. My dad (an ex-military man) later confirmed for me that military types often think in terms of blast radii.
A final story, from a friend of mine who was in the class below me: while I was in high school, a mega shopping complex not too far away had just opened up. No doubt oblivious of the irony, the developers named it "The Arboretum", despite the fact that they had leveled dozens of acres of woodland to make the place. Anyway, its novelty made it a somewhat popular place for high school kids to go cruising. (Recall that there's not much to do in Charlotte, NC.)
So, one Friday afternoon, as everyone's happily chatting to each other, Mr. D breaks in and says, "So, what are you guys doing this weekend? Cruising in the Arbo, perhaps?" Bemused, the class replied, "Mr. D, what's the Arbo?" He tut-tutted them. "You know, the Arboretum! That's what you call it, isn't it?"
And from that day forth, it was.
I Googled Mr. D's name later that day and found my high school's alumni newsletters (which I'd long since ceased to get, after so many moves) were available online as PDFs. I read through them for updates of my old classmates: lots of announcements of weddings and births, but also the occasional item about Fulbright fellowships, law firm partnerships, and various other things to make us all green with envy. I suddenly wondered what my updates to the alumni newsletter would be.
uzbradistan, '96, ate the whole bag of chips, even after he promised himself he wouldn't.
uzbradistan, '96, recently beat his personal best at WordTwist in Facebook after playing more than 250 straight games.
uzbradistan, '96, still hasn't seen the new Batman movie, if you can possibly believe it.