Former late-night TV host David Letterman set up a scholarship at his alma mater;
Ball State, for C students. He recognized them to be smart in other ways.
2025 Key Note Speaker at Brown University
I wouldn’t be staying at The Biltmore Hotel making final preparations to deliver this year’s commencement address at my alma mater, if it were not for a life-altering event in junior high, so long ago.
Early Sixties — The Awakening
Sit-still desks are screwed into the floor, and six multi-paneled windows, blackboards, and cork boards surround the rest of classroom 306. Half the kids throw erasers or toss chalk back and forth. Mr. Jones comes out from behind a desk, gives us the evil eye and recites the poem he assigned for homework. “What happened at the end, class?”
Like a prairie dog to its burrow, I’m scraping two fingers inside an empty inkwell. A square peg in a round hole, counting days. Something’s different this time. The silence is killing me. Not paying close attention, as usual, I raise my hand.
“Manuel Perez, do you need the hall pass again?”
I’m not trying to con him. I shake my head and rock like an idling hot rod MG with a Chevy V-8, while giving, ‘teach’ a wicked side look.
He bows and extends his arm. “By all means…” A wink. A nod. “Do tell.”
I hold back a smile. I stand and remove bent fingers from the well. “The woman is gone,
Mr. Jones. She died!”
Silence swallows 306. “Don’t laugh, kids. Manny’s right.” The bell rings.
Big deal. We’re not taking algebra and Latin; we ‘do’ shop classes. They have
special names for us—ungraded or fresh-air rooms. I developed a list of slang terms
in my Spanish/English notebook that’s morphed into a diario.
Shop classes bore me. My best friend Dan Ryan repairs toys, cars, boats, motorcycles, anything. He ignores company warnings to return damaged items to the manufacturer and opens electric tools. A quick fix and they’re back together in a Boston minute.
The Awakening Continues. . .
The next morning, the public announcer says, “Manuel Perez, your presence is requested in 212.” Hmm, that’s not the vice principal’s room. It’s the egghead classroom.
Through a 5×8 inch hole in the door, I watch Mr. Jones. He turns and winks. Fingers snapping, I bop in on cue. Kids exchange looks.
Mr. Jones points. “Stand here.” With a smirk on his face, he says, “What happened, Manny?”
“The woman is gone, Mr. Jones. She died!”
“Thank you. See you back in class.”
Pushing through the lavatory doors, I yank a Zippo from my dungarees and fire up a Camel. I then remove a link from my short-timer’s chain and reattach it to one of the belt loops on my bell bottoms. Ten more and I’ll be sixteen. Room 212. Best and brightest? Bullshit.
More classroom visits—nada, nada, nada. Sniff, sniff . . . I’m not the fuckin’ ‘chowder-head’ they think I am. Sorry. Many teachers, like me. They smiled when I told them I’m on probation for stealing banned books I can’t find in the ‘children’s’ section of school or public libraries.
The three amigos, Dan and I, join Mr. Jones on Friday afternoons. We call him George. He tells stories about growing up black in the South and the war in Korea. George persuades me to retake the placement test. “It will open doors,” he says. “Even for C students.”
Beyond the Awakening
Can you believe it? George promises us feathered chestnut fedoras, like his, if we graduate on time. Come fall, Dan studies at The Voc. I be at Classical with the eggheads. Pop got a second job and we moved nearer to Brown University and its many activities offered to the community. Life became more interesting than living in an inner-city housing project in a place called Providence. God’s will played no part in my successes. I did it for myself. Mom prayed for me, though.
Dan and George
One day George quoted author Haruki Murakami. ‘Mountaineers who choose not to climb Fuji, do so because they know by looking at it from different angles. Mountaineers who must climb are the stupid ones. They become novelists…’ I’m writing a novella.
Dan never climbed Mount Fuji, nor did he write a novel. He served one tour of duty in the US Air Force as a jet engine mechanic in Japan. Dan never met a system he didn’t like.
Another time, George said, ‘Dan, you have a keen eye.’ He didn’t understand, but heard teachers say things like, ‘he’s a problem solver.’
George once asked, ‘How’s school?’
Dan said, ‘Good.’
George said, ‘You’ll go far.’
I needed George more than Keen-eyed Dan. One difference between Dan and me, he’s a real genius. Dan worked as head of maintenance at Providence College for years. Only male department head without a necktie.
Back at the Biltmore
With an invitation to deliver this year’s commencement address, at Brown University I come home after thirty-five years working as an adult education specialist with the UN.
If I can remember the title of the poem, I’ll share my life-altering event. “Who’s knocking at my door?”
“Oportunidad!” “ Danny-boy!” We man-hug.
He remembers Francis Johansen’s poem, ‘A Woman’s Story.’ She died happy. To be fair, maybe a harder concept to understand at fourteen. I was sixteen at the time and an English as a Second Language reader who read a lot.
Tomorrow will be a beautiful day.
The next evening, Dan and I are staring out a restaurant window. A man appears under a blinking neon sign wearing a fedora.
Danny says, “It can’t be him, Doctor Perez.”
National Teacher of the Year, Mr. Jones, became a legend. You see, he used to be a C student, a troublemaker and loved problem students. He found cracks in doors and shared his secrets.
(George bows and extends his arm. “By all means…”)