A few days ago, I learned that a friend from high school had passed away at just fifty-seven years old.
The news hit harder than I expected. Maybe it’s because I’m now the same age he was. Maybe it’s because, at some point, you stop measuring time by birthdays and start measuring it by memories.
Whatever the reason, it made me think about school.
When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to leave it behind. Every day felt like one more obstacle standing between me and the weekend. I wasn’t dreaming about a career or planning my future. I wanted to play Atari, spend hours rolling dice in Dungeons & Dragons, browse the comic book store, throw a Nerf football around the neighborhood, or convince my friends to star in another Spider-Man Super 8 movie.
School was simply the place I had to survive until life could begin.
Looking back now, I realize how wrong I was.
Like most teenagers, I never considered the impact my teachers would have on the person I’d eventually become. Their lessons weren’t always found buried in textbook lectures or quizzes. Many of the things they taught me wouldn’t reveal themselves until decades later.
So humor me for a moment.
Sherman… fire up the Wayback Machine.
It’s 1984, and I’m walking through the halls of Easton High School wearing Jordache jeans, carrying books wrapped in brown grocery bags covered with the names of my favorite hair-metal bands. Somewhere in my imagination, Spandau Ballet’s “True” is playing over the loudspeakers.
(Okay… I made that last part up about Spandau Ballet.)
What surprises me today is how little I remember from most of the classes I took in school. Ask me what I learned in tenth-grade algebra and I’ve got nothing. My friend Michele, meanwhile, can probably tell you exactly where everyone sat in history class. That kind of memory is almost supernatural.
But while many of the lessons have faded, three teachers never have.
Mr. Siddons.
Mr. Fox.
Mr. Milisits.
I don’t even think of them by their first names. I never have.
Sadly, all three are gone now.
Yet they continue to teach me.
Mr. Siddons
Mr. Siddons taught tenth-grade U.S. history. He spoke softly, almost never raised his voice, and possessed a remarkable talent for telling spectacularly terrible jokes.
The kind that would earn nothing but silence from a room full of teenagers.
“Do you know what the father bull said to his son when he left for college?… Bison.”
Cue the trademark Mr. Siddons chuckle.
The classroom? Absolute crickets.
At first I rolled my eyes like everyone else, but then something funny happened.
I began to find myself looking forward to those awful jokes.
No matter how badly they landed, he never seemed embarrassed. He’d laugh to himself, wipe his mouth, and smoothly transition into a discussion about the Gulf of Tonkin or the Volstead Act as though he’d just delivered the greatest punchline in comedy history.
Walking out of class, I’d often find myself quietly repeating one of those jokes and smiling.
He never knew it, but they worked.
Even more impressive was the fact that whenever I’d pass him in the hallway during my junior and senior year, he’d always greet me by name.
He remembered.
That mattered more than he probably realized.
Mr. Fox
Art class was my refuge. For one period every day, I didn’t have to worry about homework, tests, or teenage drama. I could simply draw.
Mr. Fox, with his gray beard and slight limp from childhood polio, quietly presided over that little sanctuary.
One afternoon he brought in an elaborate circus model he had built himself. Every tent. Every food stand. Every tiny detail. I remember staring at it thinking, This guy is unbelievably talented.
Then came the day we were sketching classmates posing as models.
I could draw the body. The clothes. The sneakers. But every face I attempted looked… wrong.
Frustrated, I sat there erasing the same lines over and over.
Mr. Fox noticed.
He sat beside me, studied my drawing for a moment, and asked why I looked so discouraged.
I told him I could never get faces right.
He smiled.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jim,” he said. “If you really want something and you’re willing to work at it, you’ll get there.”
As we talked, he casually doodled on a scrap of paper. Thirty seconds later, he slid it across the table. It was a perfect sketch of me.
Not a cartoon. Not an approximation. Me.
He stood up, patted me on the shoulder, and simply said, “Keep up the good work.”
I kept that drawing for years. More importantly, I kept the lesson.
Mr. Milisits
If art class was an escape, choir was an adventure.
Mr. Milisits—”M” to everyone—had an uncanny ability to make students believe they could do things they never imagined.
He constantly reminded us: “You can do this,” or “A new mistake shows progress,” or, my favorite, “Talk to me.”
They weren’t just slogans taped to the classroom walls. He believed them.
Somehow he convinced a skinny kid whose life revolved around Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and heavy metal guitar to play in jazz band, perform in the high school musical, and sing choral music at concerts.
Looking back, I’m still amazed. Choir trips felt like rock concerts. Performances felt important. For a teenager searching for confidence, M made you feel like you belonged on that stage.
The black guitar I played during our spring concert in 1987 still hangs on the wall of my office today.
Every time I look at it, I think of him.
It’s difficult to believe that more than forty years have passed since I first walked through those halls.
Back then, I couldn’t wait to leave. Now I’d give almost anything to spend one more afternoon there—not because of the classes or the homework, but because of the people.
The older I get, the more I realize teachers rarely know the full impact they have on us:
A joke. A conversation. A few encouraging words. A simple greeting in the hallway. Those moments don’t seem significant at the time.
Until one day, decades later, they’re the memories that remain.
So here’s to Mr. Siddons, Mr. Fox and Mr. Milisits. And to every teacher who ever wondered whether they made a difference.
You probably did. More than you’ll ever know.
go.Jimmy.go 
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