When one thinks of role models - of course parents come to mind... older brother/sister... older cousins... older neighborhood friends... but, for many of us, the very best role models were our teachers......
For purpose of this story, we'll call this role model teacher 'JS'. JS taught shop. Teachers have rough jobs. Tough, frustrating trying to teach/relate algorithms, dangling participles, or Espanol. To me though, that's all kid stuff in comparison to being in charge of thirty 15, 16, 17 & 18 year olds working with grinders, drill presses, and virtually every type of saw known to man.
JS didn't let any of that phase him. He was calm, quick-witted, fair, helpful and simply a very, very nice man.
I didn't really know our librarian. Let's call her 'CR' for short. The few times I did go in the library, I found her to be kinda mean (you know, looked over the top of her glasses judgingly at you), and you got the feeling she was simply there to look for 'shoplifters', aka, book thieves. She seemingly liked to complain and I honestly do not ever remember her smiling. CR was also a VERY, VERY LARGE person.
'VA', let's call him, was in charge of maintenance for the school district. Nice man, walked with a bit of a limp, took pride in his job, and he too (like JS) had a pretty decent size sense of humor.
Summertime, I was lucky enough to be employed on JS's crew to fix any/all things in and around the school buildings.
One morning, as we were all sitting, awaiting our assignments for the day from VA - he looked at JS (and me) and said "I want you to go to the library.. there's a six foot tall bookcase right by the front door and CR is just as sure as she can be kids are stealing books and that it's blocking her view. She wants it cut in half so it's only three feet tall."
As VA was assigning JS and I, JS peeked over after hearing the word 'library', kinda rolled his eyes, so I got the impression too that he also thought CR was kinda mean, grumpy, just not a very happy person.
We grabbed up our tools, saws, sandpaper, stain, broom, dustpan - and we were off to the library.
JS, of course, had preached the rule "measure twice, cut once" to us saplings. I wasn't the greatest with tools, but, being with JS, I knew our job would be cinchy and well done.
He took great strides in making sure that was just the case. We measured (twice), cut (he did it, I didn't wanna), sanded where we'd cut, re-stained, swept up all the sawdust - laid the now three foot tall bookcases side by side, so CR's view of kids entering, exiting the library would be unobstructed. Perfect. A job well done (we thought anyways.)
The next morning, we once again were there awaiting VA to shout out our daily assignments. Before he started talking, JS proudly asked "so what did ole CR think about her new bookcases?"... VA smiled, and then he said, "Well.. she told me to 'tell those HALF ASS carpenters'...... (and I don't remember the rest, wasn't good, and I just remember looking over at the normally calm JS, and I was thinking "uh oh!")
JS took a moment to collect his thoughts, looked at VA in they eyes and calmly replied, "Well.. you tell that ASS AND A HALF Librarian...." and I didn't hear the rest because I was on the floor rolling. Even VA laughed.
I sadly learned JS passed a couple years back. Nice, nice man - and I will never forget this story.
Love, Victurd
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