She threw a book, I became a reader

The story goes that I was a handful as a child.

True, there was the time I wanted to ride a next-door neighbour’s bike and he wouldn’t let me. So I picked up a rock and threw it in his general direction.

To be fair, it was a remarkable throw for a kid still early into his years in elementary school. But bouncing a stone off your friend’s forehead, drawing blood — just a little blood — was a poor way to solve a problem.

My father confirmed that point after arriving home from his job as a soldier at the nearby military base. He did what dads did back then to reform miscreant children, he reddened my backside, rather thoroughly.

“The only way I ever figured out how to get you to sit down and not cause trouble,” my mother recalled years later, “was the day I threw a book at you. You grabbed it and disappeared into a corner.”

SPECIAL TEACHERS

Seems I came by the throwingthings thing naturally. While I gave that up soon enough, the love of books endured.

Some of that was nature, some nurture. I credit a bit of the latter to some very special teachers. Their names remain fresh in my mind.

Mrs. Bell, my Grade 6 reading teacher. She could silence a room with a look, but let us bounce from desk to desk as we talked about what we’d just read.

Miss Wright, my final biology teacher in high school. Ruth — we NEVER called her that to her face — somehow convinced us figuring what distal tubules were, and what they did in kidneys, was homework worth doing.

Mr. Mather, my math teacher in Grade 12. His “again!” when we finally got something right while learning binominal something or others was a dare, a “are you sure you got that right?”

Many a faint-hearted student folded and switched their answer, earning howls of laughter from both teacher and fellow students when it was pointed out the answer was right.

Vince, the chemistry professor and former Jesuit priest who had earned a PhD in chemistry from the University of Tasmania. “Today, I’m going to help you understand why bootlegger Angus MacPhee of Cape Breton can’t get the alcohol in his still any purer than about 95 per cent,” he announced one morning.

It has been well over 40 years since that day, but I still remember what a phase equilibria diagram looks like — just don’t ask me how it works.

It was a great start to a lecture. No. 2 in my greatest hits list.

No. 1? Dave, the history professor who remained my friend and occasional running partner for years after my graduation, right up to the terrible tragedy of dementia that stole his wonderful mind from us.

INFLUENCE LIVES

One day he walked into class, hung up his roll of maps depicting the U.S. in the 1790s, turned to us, smirked his smirk and began: “Benjamin Franklin was the biggest (bleep) who ever lived.”

Only he didn’t bleep out anything. He owned us for the next 45 minutes.

So when I read a story last week about a teacher who had found a way to encourage students to read, I smiled.

She wraps books in brown paper — don’t judge a book by its cover, get it? — and writes the first line from each book on the wrapper.

“My life was about to change,” said one.

“The sky was still dark when the ground began to shake,” started another.

“How small I look. Laid out flat, my stomach touching ground. My right knee bent — new Nikes stained with blood,” began the third.

I look that one up. Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The book — for readers eight to 12 — explores why the ghosts, Jerome and other boys like him, are stuck here.

Here’s my prediction. The Grade 6 teacher who set up this project will influence lives, lots of them, for the better. For years. Great teachers do that. Every day.