They wanted someone to interview old man Eggers for the teacher profile for the week. Nobody was volunteering. Finally, Cathy had said, “I’ll do it.” You gotta quit being such a pushover in those meetings. How are you going to make an interview with Eggers interesting? He’s like a million years old, gotta be boring as hell. What could he possibly have to say that would be of interest to us in this middle school? It didn’t help that you complained to Dad about it, either. All he said was, “Well, Cathy, your job as the journalist is to figure out what makes him interesting and get him to talk about it for your interview.” Great. No help. At All.

She’d set up an interview time during her study hall and his free period. He’d even been nice enough to write her a pass to excuse her from study hall. She’d worked on the questions last night after she’d finished her homework, trying to make this interview interesting. She hadn’t done the teacher interviews before. In the end, she used the basic questions used in previous interviews.
“Hi, Mr. Eggers. Thank you for agreeing to do this interview for the school paper. I have some basic questions for you, but feel free to expand if you have something you’d rather tell us.”

Mr. Eggers nodded, and she dived in to her first question. “How long have you been teaching?”

Mr. Eggers smiled and must have done some math in head, “I’ve been here at Edelbroch Junior High for sixteen years. Before that, I was over in Mason at their junior high for four years.”

Carefully noting the details, Cathy then asked, “Where did you go to school?”

“I graduated from Jasper High School and did my undergraduate work at the University of Northern Iowa.”

“When did you decide to become a teacher?”

Mr Eggers leaned back in his chair with a far away look in his eyes. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts before answering. Finally, he said, “I made it sound pretty easy when I answered your question about where I went to school. I left out that there were twenty-four years between the two dates. You see, when I graduated from high school, all I wanted to do was get away. So I enlisted in the Army. I retired from the Army before I went to college and earned my degree. I served in Vietnam. While I was there, I met soldiers who could barely read and write. They’d been drafted, and they were in the job most often open to draftees — ground pounder infantry. A lot of them were great guys, but they didn’t have a lot of options in their lives, because they didn’t have an education. I stayed in the Army after the war ended, but I was still meeting young soldiers who had been jilted by the education system. The Army, once they became the All Volunteer Army, developed programs to get those guys help, but wouldn’t it have been better if they got the education they needed before they were adults?” He looked at Cathy and waited. Cathy nodded, and he continued, “So I decided I’d use my GI Bill after I retired to go to school and become a teacher.”

Cathy had been captivated by his story and forgotten to take notes as he spoke. When he paused for her next question, she glanced down, “I guess that answers my next question about why you decided to become a teacher — you wanted to impact people’s lives earlier?”

He smiled as if she’d gotten the million dollar answer, “Exactly. That’s why I work in the remedial classes. I love helping students unlock the mysteries of learning.”

Cathy scribbled madly to catch up. “Who influenced you the most in this decision?”

“A lot of people, but I’d have to say a guy named Milton from Mississippi. He was the smartest guy I knew, but he thought he was dumb. I taught him to read, and it was as if the lights came on. He became a voracious learner after that, and there was no holding him back.”

“Wow.”

Mr Eggers had a surprisingly dreamy look on his face, “It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever experienced. I love the challenge of finding the key that unlocks the joy of learning for someone who has come to believe they can’d do it.” He looked directly at Cathy, “At least twenty-five percent of my students discover they don’t need to be in special classes, and once we get them caught up, they rejoin regular classes. Another fifty percent go on to learn a valuable trade, and some have become prominent members of the community in their specialty areas. So many people think people with academic challenges don’t have something to offer the world, but they’re very wrong. Once my students realize this, and they understand how much they can do, they make a huge difference in their lives and those of the world around them.”

Cathy was scribbling furiously trying to keep up. Why hadn’t she brought a tape recorder. Finally she finished, looked over her notes, realized what he’d said, and looked up, “I never thought about it that way before.”

Mr. Eggers smiled. “Good. A lot of other people haven’t either.”

She stood up and offered her hand for Mr. Eggers to shake. “Thank you for the interview. I hope I can do you justice in the write-up.”

He took her hand and shook it. “I’m sure you will.”

________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. Today’s entry is a work of fiction. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it in comments — what you liked or didn’t like. Each day will be a little different, so if you don’t want to miss an entry, please enter your email address below, press sign-up, then check your inbox to click the validation link to get these blog posts in your inbox.