Story 74: Say what?

         Life can be funny sometimes and students can be equally so.  I’ve worked in Jewish schools with Hebrew slang phonetically spelling out “hooters” in the boys bathroom, or the time when I was in a yogurt store with my brother and a student from the same Hebrew day school asked me,”Don’t you work at the NS Hebrew Academy?”

I replied “Yes,” and then turned to my brother saying, “I can’t go anywhere without being recognized.”

A teenage girl then turned to me and asked excitedly, 
“Who are you?”

“See what I mean.” I said to Bruce.

“No, really who are you?” she asked again with even more interest.

“Nobody,” I replied, but inside I wish I could have said I really was someone famous like a musician or member of The New York Yankees, hell I would even settle for being a Met back then, but instead I was just me and told the disappointed girl so.

Another time I was teaching science at a middle school in Flushing, New York and was asked a few questions.  An Indian boy asked, “Excuse me mister, What’s an epicenter?” 

An African-American student who reminded me of a young Eddie Murphy replied with a grin, “That’s in Florida next to Disney right?” The class erupted in laughter.

A week later I was teaching about acids and bases and I asked, “What else is acidic?”

Little Eddie responded quickly, “A Jew.”  Once again the class broke up.  I turned around thinking, “Maybe I’m not the smartest one here.”

Life Lesson 74:  A few final thoughts.  First, follow your dream, but always appreciate what you have not what you don’t. In addition, remember that out of the mouths of babes come the funniest things sometimes, and sometimes also the wisest, and occasionally the most wise-assed. Appreciate them all.