My former colleague D just called me, which is unfortunate only because yesterday I wrote him a note–I’d even stuck a stamp to the envelope already–wishing him well and telling him about our impending move. But he beat me to the draw, and the stamped envelope is now in the desk drawer awaiting further notice.
“I hear you’re leaving the area,” he said, and then offered not his own down-hip help, but his large pickup truck with a livestock trailer (“We keep it relatively clean,” he said) and the help of his son-in-law, who attends a church in our destination arena.
After I thanked him profusely, he asked me one more question.
(Now, I need to mention here that before ending his final year of teaching early, to have hip surgery and ride out his sick leave, D stuck his head into my room and said, in a spirit of good-natured gloatation, “Let’s see now, I have two days of school left, and, if my calculations are right, you have… about 5,450.” Funny. Very funny.)
“Are you going to school tomorrow?” he asked me.
“Yes, I plan to,” I said, innocently–after all, my students take the state reading test tomorrow, and they need my (stern) moral support.
“Well, I’m not,” he said sweetly. “I think I’ll sleep in. You have a good day!”
In several weeks or months, or maybe after we move, I think I’ll send him a big thank-you note for his trailer offer–and for his refreshing sense of humor. The envelope is already ready to go.
