Chuck

Around this time of year, I start to feel reflective. I recently started thinking a lot about my old high school math teacher Chuck. If I remember right, the class was Integrated Math which I took during my sophomore year.

Memories of Chuck

Chuck kinda reminded me of Neil Finn from Crowded House; probably because they shared similar hair styles. Chuck still has this hair style and honestly, I couldn’t imagine him having it any other way. He has a wicked sense of humor. I remember one day being one of the last ones to leave the class with my friend and referred to her as “fart knocker” (mind you Beavis and Butt-head were still popular at the time). Without missing a beat, Chuck chimed in with sarcastic humor, “Fart knocker? Why don’t you just say queef smasher.” For a second, I was in disbelief, but it was pretty damn funny then and I still laugh about it now. When you’re in school, you tend to forget teachers are human and in being funny, Chuck drove the point home.

Aside from being a funny guy who looks like that dude from Crowded House, Chuck was a passionate teacher who made a run for a seat on the school board, which he lost. Had I been old enough at the time, I would have voted for him. I know he wanted to make teaching and learning better. In Integrated Math, he put math in context of things teenagers of a driving age care about: Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola, concert tickets, and there may have been a question once about gas money. A lot of math teachers I had wanted students to solve math problems their way; not Chuck. He would explain how to get to the answer several different ways and wouldn’t move on  to the next problem until he was sure everyone in the class found a path to the answer that worked for them.

Chuck had expressed once that he had always wanted to join the U.S. Marines, but he kinda let those plans go because he went to college, got married, and had his first child. He toyed with the idea of making it somewhat of a reality by joining the Reserves; something he had to do soon as he was coming upon the age limit to enlist. He figured he would be able to do it if he did Basic Training during Summer Break. Myself and others advocated it, so he went.

While Chuck was in Basic Training, I was spent the summer with family in New Mexico. Chuck and I exchanged letters and he even sent me  a copy of his Marine portrait. Yup, he was totally made to be a Marine. Looking back on it, I realize now I was pretty privileged that he was able to find time to send me correspondence. I remember him writing about how I would have appreciated that the best runner in his group was a soccer player, but that he was the better marksman.

Why Remember Now

Last year, I befriended Chuck on Facebook even though he doesn’t post that often. Early this summer, I started seeing Chuck tagged in mentions on Facebook about hospital visits and radiation treatment. When I visited his page, I saw more clues that he had some form of cancer, particularly in the photos. My great aunt went through radiation treatment when she had cancer so I was familiar with the signs. Figuring this out felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut. I was shocked and the verge of tears.

Chuck has cancer?

It wasn’t until recently that Chuck’s daughter came out and confirmed on Facebook that he had throat cancer. The first tumor was treated with radiation; the second with surgery.

Nobody deserves to have cancer, but least of all Chuck. He is still a young pup; he just turned 47-years-old. He has many more students yet to teach his life-based style of math, that math and life are similar in that there is more than one way to get to solution or answer. I hope he beats his cancer so he can watch his son graduate high school as he did his daughter, that he has more time for his large extended family, and that he has many more years of shaping the lives of subsequent generations of students as he did with me.