Monthly Archives: November 2008

Instead of focusing on all my problems, I decided to spend my Thanksgiving week being thankful. Today, I would like to thank all my past teachers. There’s been a lot of you, over the years. Too many to list. But each of you played a large role in my current and future success. Here is a personal thanks to the ones whose names I remember how to spell:

• Thank you, Mrs. Carol (1st grade) for teaching me how to read.
• Thank you, Miss Dowd (3rd grade) for teaching me how to spell. 
• Thank you, Mrs. Reeves (6th grade) for teaching me to love to read.
• Thank you, Mrs. Cooper (7th grade history) for dressing up like a pilgrim that one day in class.
• Thank you, Coach Putnam (junior high athletics) for inspiring me … and then not killing me when I quit cross-country anyway.
• Thank you, Ms. Gaston (junior high band) for teaching me to play the trumpet. I’ll never forget how excited you were when I gained the cordination to play 16th notes while taping my foot to whole notes.
• Thank you, Mrs. Flaherty (8th grade art) for letting us make giant Andy Warhol-esque sculptures of everyday objects. I’ll never forget my 4-foot tall matchbox. Also, thanks for partnering me up with the cutest guy!
• Thank you, Ms. Ellershaw (home-economics and yearbook) for teaching me how to cook Snickerdoodles and how to crop photos with a manual cropper.
• Thank you, Ms. Arnold (freshman college) for teaching me my first words of French.
• Thank you, Ms. Baker and Mr. Cure (high school theater) for saving me from a lifetime of Hollywood auditions. Learning that I can’t act in high school paved the way to my current writing joy.
• Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton (11th grade, English) for teaching us the symbolism behind the stormy sky in The Scarlet Letter. You also had great scarves.
• Thank you, Dr. Tripp (12th grade philosopy) for introducing me to the wold outside the walls of our senses.
• Thank you, Mr. Regalado (12th grade photography) for teaching me how to use a darkroom.
• Thank you, Ms. Yeatts (college creative writing) for your 1st day of school intro to the difference between literary and popular fiction with the songs “Hallelujah” and “I’m a Believer.”
• Thank you, Madame LeCoq (French culture in France) for teaching me NEVER to drink wine in a plastic cup.
• Thank you, Paul Morris (creative non-fiction) for teaching me how to live as a writer.
• Thank you to all my other professors who may not want to be associated with my website, so you will remain nameless. But thanks for keeping faith in me throughout my long graduate school career.