As I am sitting here, absolutely zooted and deep diving Miaphysitism after a Field of Glory: Kingdoms play session as Solomon, I am reminded of figures from my past that helped stoke my eternal curiosity. Heroes, if you want to call them that.

My 6^th grade teacher Mr. McClure was a hero. Mr. K, the sub that served as infantry in Vietnam, he’s on the Mount Rushmore. My brother Russ as well. My greatest inspiration for my curiosity, however, which has transformed into an unstoppable drive, is Glenn (I don’t remember if it is one N or two).

Glen is neck and neck with one other character in my life for the most interesting and captivating person I have ever met. The other dude is this crazy heroin addict who is like 80 and taught math at Dartmouth. He knows a bunch of languages and instruments and he is a total vibe. We used to get drunk together while he played the piano at his local bar, known as the HOT-el.

Anyway,

I was expelled from public school at 14. My parents were dying and it totally fucked me up. I ended up in this absolute bat shit alternative school full of hardcore motherfuckers. I didn’t bother talking to my friends about it, because all the townies going to the local high school just did not get it.

This is where this stupid bumpkin first began thinking about the greater world. My goofy, nerdy, ass was surrounded by kids that went to juvenile hall, active drug users, Black kids, Puerto Rican kids, pregnant girls, gangbangers, etc. I am sure I’m forgetting some others, but you get it. I will be writing an in depth essay on my time at this place. I am greatly looking forward to reliving some of those wild times. For now, though, back to our subject.

Glenn is a one-of-a-kind guy. He always wears sweatpants, never raises his voice, and is some form of modern philosopher. When Glen leaned back in his seat and started to avert eye contact, you knew wisdom was about to drop. We were a school full of fuck ups taught mostly by college students in over their heads and here came this OG from Washington D.C. with a bit of Alabama drawl thrown in. He played professional basketball in weird tiny leagues in South America and Ireland, had his face smashed in by a dude with a duct taped Wiffle ball bat, and was intimately familiar with “zip-guns”.

Needless to say, this guy was unflappable. The thing about fuck up schools is, we are all fuck ups. As such, behavioral issues are common. Getting under a grad student’s skin was a game to some of these kids. That shit did not fly with Glenn. Glen would sit your ass down and break down with you why you were acting wild in the first place. Like get deep into life and philosophy and shit.

Teachers could sign kids out to go to libraries or on little trips to places like the Worcester Armory. Sometimes, even if his class (usually like 1 to 4 kids) started to pop off, Glenn would sign us out just to get us the fuck away from that place. When not on the school grounds, he was really loose with rules as long as we respected him. You didn’t take Glen’s kindness for a weakness. If you did, you were going to get mind fucked by some deep shit Glenn dropped on you that kept you up at night. Glen was from D.C., like real D.C. Our behavior was just tantrums to him. Laughable displays. In retrospect, he was right. We were all goofs.

Glenn had a way about him that made each and every one of us feel important. He made us all feel valuable. Most of all, he made us all, even the most lost of us, feel like we had a future and potential. He saw a side of each individual that the younger and less experienced with the other side of the tracks college kids sometimes did not. In their defense, the girl teachers were relentlessly hit on and the dudes were constantly challenged by some of the more charged up students.

I guess some teenage kids would dream of being taught by 20-year-old girls, but I was on another planet then. The whole experience was just bizarre more than anything. If Chrissy reads this, thanks for not shitting on me for sleeping through an entire semester of Spanish. The “me gusta nachos” birthday card was never forgotten. You were one of the ones that didn’t make us feel like fuck ups.

Okay, I have to get back to Glen or I will end up writing a book. This is shit I don’t think I have ever shared in my life, so I am running off in 50 directions.

Glenn told me one story that has stuck with me for my entire life. He told me, in essence, that he was just some dipshit from Washington with very few prospects aside from being good enough at ball to play in the previously mentioned weird leagues across the globe. Glen described an earlier version of himself that was blissfully, almost willingly, ignorant.

Then, he went to the Yucatan peninsula, where something about seeing the Mayan ruins flipped some switch in his brain. I am paraphrasing here, as it has been decades, but it went something like, ”Jared… I looked at those ruins and in that moment, I realized I was a dumb ass who didn’t know anything about the World at all.” He ended up going to and graduating from Alabama (Roll Tide), and becoming a teacher of little shits, where he changed lives.

That one story, which I hope is correct due to the profound effect it had on me, altered my whole way of thinking.

It wasn’t instant mind you. My parents both died in the Summer after I turned 16. The staff only knew about my mom. When Glenn asked “Hey, Jared, how’s your old man?” I crumbled in front of all these little badasses and young excited teachers and just wailed. I was fucked up for the rest of my time there. It is a really difficult part of my life to piece together. I know it sucked, and as I have mentioned before, I know I lied a lot, which is of course embarrassing to look back on.

That makes it hard to reach out to people. I instantly enter that kid’s mind, except I am able to look at him through an adult’s lens. It’s humbling.

Anyway, I really wanted to reach out to Glen. I don’t have social media aside from a shitposting twitter account. I am an email or snail mail guy. I guess he moved to Costa Rica or some other Caribbean country. A very Glenn thing to do. My wife found him on her socials and they exchanged light pleasantries. I don’t know why, but I was excited. I anticipated a person that meant so much to me to somehow already know it. I never told him though, so in his mind, I am still a sniveling, lying little piece of shit.

Honestly, I am probably just having dead dad issues or something. I lost him in early August.

Anyway, Glen, our stupid seemingly meaningless conversation has put me on a trajectory that I could only dream of, even though it took me a while. Now that I have traveled and learned so much, I feel closer to where Glenn was then, if that makes sense.

Anyway, some people don’t give as much of a shit as you do. In other cases, it is the hero who falls in your eyes.

It is what it is,

JTC