The shoots in the front garden are even higher now. Every time I come home I give them a quick look. They are my reminders that springtime is getting closer, and as the morning is only 32°, those reminders bring hope and thoughts of warmer days and gardens filled with flowers.

I went out for breakfast as I always do on Sundays. The place was unusually crowded, but we found a booth and chatted our way through eggs and bacon. While we were there, a former student came up to say hello. I didn’t recognize him until he said his name then it all flashed back. He was a kid in my office all the time, mostly for disrupting classes. I remember he once offered a  suggestion during one of our discussions after he’d been tossed from class. He figured if I let him cut class, he wouldn’t be in class to disrupt it. As logical as his argument was, I had to explain that class cuts were also problems requiring consequences. He was caught either way: coming or going. We got to know each other that year, and I came to like him. One on one he was personable and funny. In class he was a horror.

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen him. He is now a man in his mid 20’s who told me he is taking classes at the local community college. I told him how proud I was for him. He beamed.

I never saw a class disrupted when I was in school. In elementary school whispering or note passing were the worst offenses, and most times the nun just called the name of the offending whisperer and the whispering stopped. She’d take the note being passed or asked that it be read aloud. That was the worst. We never had detention as a consequence, but we had sentences. Writing “I will not whisper” a 100 times might be the punishment for multiple infractions. I never got that far. I knew better. I was also really good at not getting caught.