Remembering some great teachers. High school Latin teacher for 3 years, always hilarious, always righteous, knowingly cynical but certain about the value of Latin. Grade school English teacher and grammarmarm. I learned recently she’s buried at Arlington. I wish I knew that when I was there in 2011, I would have paid her a visit. Piano teacher from 4th grade through 7th grade, I think of her maxims almost any time I sit down to play. College prof who witheringly scrawled across the title page of my essay: “A curious mix of insight, cynicism, and laziness,” and who later said “I don’t know if your future is promising or a fucking boondoggle.” The college administrator who said “You should really take a deep breath and think before sending letters like that.” The pianist who opened the world of sound to me in ways that made me feel I’d been deaf my whole life. The bus driver in the 4th grade who told me that growing up would be headaches and women and bullshit and to enjoy youth while it lasted. Kindergarten bus driver who got lost for hours trying to get me home, he kept saying “Never worry when you are lost, worry gets you nothing, find your way, let’s just get you home.” Those older kids on that same bus who beat the shit out of me and poked me in the eye with broomsticks. Summer camp counselor who found a riverside littered with beer bottles and garbage and who kicked the trash in anger, then instructed his young charges to bag it and put it in garbage cans. The woman who said “As you travel through life you will meet more people whose last names start with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter.” High school English teacher who more-or-less correctly predicted “You will encounter the word ‘dint’ no more than 10 times in your life.” The Usenet troll who mistakenly called me a “sorry excuse for a human being,” and who said I should “die.” (Her comments were intended for someone else.) Whoever told me “Everything is jazz.” Whoever told me “Life is long.” Whoever told me “Stupidity does not exist.” Whoever is fully cooked and simply needs to be reheated. I must be lucky if I can never finish this list, and that I remember the good teachers before the bad.