Memories of a Son of Memory (Part XI): Fresh Friendship

My firstborn child came to us with half of a heart, suffering from a condition known as hypoplastic right heart syndrome. Through the course of the first six months of his life, we spent countless hours in the hospital, running tests, and carrying about a wired baby--plugged into his oxygen, his pulseoxymeter, or both. He nearly slid away from us on a couple of different occasions during those early months.

He was born on an auspicious week, as it were. I had finished my student teaching a month or so before and had lost my potential career by this point. Despite that, I had finished college, and commencement ceremonies were to be held the last full week of April 2007. Also, my birthday was coming, and I love my birthday. I just like having the attention, I think.

So, on 25 April, two days after Shakespeare's (alleged) birthday, my little boy Peter was born. I didn't get to hold him until the next day, my own birthday. The day after that, I was sitting in the McKay Events Center at Utah Valley State College, wearing dark robes and wishing I weren't there.

I had a job, at the time, substituting at Gayle's school, which had helped me feel a little more capable as a husband and a now-father, but the end of the school year loomed and with it unemployment. I didn't know if my baby would survive the day, week, month, or year. My wife had gone through an excruciating delivery and was not well. All in all, I was not in the mood for the festivities of graduating college. Yet I knew that I would regret not attending, as it's one of those rituals that helps provide terminus points to life's experiences.

I don't remember anything that was said. I tried, I know, to pay attention, but I couldn't concentrate. My family was happy for me, but fairly somber, over all. We ate a late lunch at Bajio's and then broke up so that I could return to Salt Lake and my family.

With the arrival of Peter and all those stresses, we decided it was time to move in with Gayle's parents. Frankly, we needed more help to keep Peter well and we needed the money going to rent to pay for the medical expenses. Packing up one basement apartment, we moved into another. Just as we did so, I managed to get a job at a website construction company where I edited clients' websites for bad grammar. Meanwhile, we frequented the hospital to ensure Peter would live. (And, despite all of this, we managed to find a way to go to the Utah Shakespeare Festival by taking my in-laws with us to rotate through babysitting Peter and watching plays.)

After a few months, however, of correcting atrocious grammar, I realized I wouldn't be able to make a career out of working on the web. I needed something more.

During this time of employment doldrums, I was asked to give a talk at my church. I misheard the topic and used the opportunity to explain some of the situation of Peter, his heart, and the experience my wife and I had had with our faith and our tribulations. I spoke with my own typical verbosity. I daresay I included a quote from Shakespeare (a habit of mine that I've included in almost every speech or lesson I've given in church) in it. What I said specifically I don't know, but one of the congregation heard me and thought to herself, "That man is so eloquent! I need to get him a job."

A few weeks later, this same ward member, Kelli, came to me and offered a job in the field of copyediting standardized tests for big-name clients. She could pay me as much for a month's work as the web design company. So I quit the one hated job to try a work-from-home solution.

It didn't take long to realize this wasn't the reason she'd hired me. I didn't do particularly well, I had a hard time turning in consistent work, and there was a lot that didn't suit me. Then she planned on going out of country for the summer of 2008 and I would be left out of a job. All of my attempts to find employ on my own had been frustrated.

At last, I asked her, my arms thrown up in the air, "What's wrong with me? You're a shrink: Tell me why I can't find a teaching job."

She gave me a searching look. "Let me introduce you to some people I know," she said.

A couple of days later, we went down the hill to a new public charter school called Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy. I'd seen it before; it was in a refurbished bowling alley that I'd gone on dates to back in my own teenage days. I hadn't thought of looking into it. After all, it was a charter school. I didn't even know what a charter school was, but I hadn't thought of it as a place for me.

Nevertheless, Kelli took me to meet the headmaster (so pretentious--headmaster, indeed). She introduced me to Justin Kennington, who shook my hand and then focused on my boss, a longtime friend of his. They spent time catching up while I looked around.

The area where much of the bowling had once transpired was now a large common room, with lockers adorning the sides. I couldn't quite figure out where the students were, as the classrooms were nestled among the lockers. The bell rang and a flood of uniformed kids swished about, coagulating in the center of the commons and then drifting off to where they needed to go next.

After a bit of this, I spoke to Justin briefly, admitted Kelli's point about my Bardolatry, and agreed to stop by with a resume in the near future. As it was nearing graduation, I decided to give him a week or two to ensure that I could talk to him when there wasn't as much crowding around and making it hard to concentrate.

I polished up my pathetic resume and slid by the school one afternoon in early June. I had on sandals and cargo shorts, with a graphic tee-shirt. I happened by when the office was actually open and asked if Justin were around. I had, after all, no plans of discussing things with him, but I preferred the idea of hand-delivering the paper.

To my surprise, he greeted me with a smile, a warm handshake, and invited me in. We sat down and began to chat, our mutual interest in Shakespeare providing much of the fodder. In one of the earlier sections, I mentioned the idea of believing in a conspiracy or a miracle, and it was there that I first heard the concept. We discussed different stagings we'd seen at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, as well as some interpretations of the texts we've come across and considered. I believe it was at that moment when I made a disparaging comment about The Taming of the Shrew, a play that always bothers me when I see it, read it, or, frankly, think about it. I can't get around the abuse.

Justin, on the other hand, felt that what was fascinating and worthwhile about the play was the way in which Petruchio tames Kate are the same methodologies of a falconer training his raptor. The similarities in structures and strictures made for an interesting comparison, though there was an implied assertion that this comparison in some way exculpated Petruchio for his reprobate behavior.

I'm still not convinced.

By the end of an hour or so, he stood up. I, too, arose. He thanked me for stopping by, and promised that we'd talk more during the second interview. Second interview? I thought to myself. Outwardly, though, I said, "I'm looking forward to it." We had spent about five of the sixty minutes talking about teaching. The rest had all been about Shakespeare.

More than a little surprised that this had constituted an interview, I left, waiting for the phone call that would bring me back to the renovated bowling alley. It came sooner than I expected. This time, I dressed in a shirt and a tie. To pass the time while I awaited my turn with Justin and the two board members, I read from his Riverside Edition of The Complete Works, my mind preoccupied with the pending interview more than the words.

When my time arrived, I answered what questions I could, but, in the end, didn't feel I'd sold my potential very well. But I always doubt my own abilities, assuming that what success I gain comes more by luck and the conning of others than anything worthwhile of my own.

Fortunately for me and my tiny family, I had impressed the board members (Justin already wanted a fellow Bardolator on the team) and I was offered a part time job teaching Socratic Seminar 10, a hybrid of history and Language Arts that I've truly fallen in love with. As of this writing, I'm still employed at Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy and I still teach Socratic Seminar 10.