Letters To My 8th Grade Teacher

Free MP3 (2.8 megs) download of the Rick Shaw Monkey's song, Mr. DePrado, inspired by this column!

Beautiful Darling
It was just my birthday, and while I like to think that I am far from old, there is a simple truth that time is a flood we can’t control. The best thing we can do is learn to swim well. Not just well, but strong. I want to be a powerful swimmer. I want to be the kind of swimmer who rescues others as I plunge down the torrent. I am fine with the flood, or at least, I am learning to be fine. Sometimes, I can even keep my head up long enough to see down to where I might be in the distant future.

Ripples in Life
When did you last run anywhere just because you couldn’t wait to get there?...

Valentines
I think I have mentioned this in past letters, but you are, in some ways, responsible for the part of my life that I sometimes call a gift, sometimes call a joy, sometimes call horror and sometimes stress, but usually refer to as my vocation.

Teaching...

Waking Humanity: The San Diego Fires
What do we put our faith in–where does our security rest? Where do we find our hope because it is all an illusion after all. We thought we were so safe in our gated communities and shiny urban condos, we felt secure about the way the edges of our buildings seemed to touch the pacific blue, but when we woke up Sunday morning to the yellow sky and gray snow falling, everything we put our security in failed. It had all been an illusion.

The Price of It
She smiles and with a confident nod, as if maybe she has settled like this her whole life, to her, this was the right decision, avoiding what you want, and taking what seems to be best. "are you sure" I ask her, almost pleading. I want to tell her it was worth the extra three dollars, that the baked fish tasted awful, that if she just took a chance and went with her gut that she would be happy for a year, and that there would be a rebirth of her very life. Every time she came to town she would bring her friends and family here as a tradition. The universe would align in her favor, a fortune might come her way, and her love life might finally develop if she would just allow herself the prawns.

Bronco Days
I don’t want someone to write "Fat Lazy American" on my car door. I don’t want someone to steal my Cadillac hood ornament off of my Escalade, or the roll bar from my X-Terra, and even though I certainly know every reason why I shouldn’t want an SUV, I still want to explore the undiscovered country, and I want to be able to slap my truck into 4-wheel drive when the "heavy" San Diego rain starts to Fall. I want to be equipped for the crazy world, and maybe, as it must be with other Americans, an SUV is like our own personal tanks, a made-to-order tub of safety and shelter, at least for 8-12 miles per gallon.

Faith
Remember when Noah Zilverberg told you he couldn’t come to class the next day because it was Yom Kippur, that he was Jewish and that it was the holiest of Holy Days. I remember Kevin Brewer’s little laugh to the side and the glance back to his friends, the faded swastika etched on his skateboard beneath his desk...

One Slice to Share
Dear Mr. Deprado, once you told us that our lives would work in stages. We resisted this immediately claiming independence, announcing our unique journey as "unable to be messed with." You told us that we march through these stages whether we like it or not: adolescence, puberty, college, and pretty soon, we would begin to see all of our friends getting married. We would probably get married too, and we would see people begin careers and projects and life adventures, searching and finding the fulfillment of all of their hopes and dreams. You also told us that we would see endings in marriages, in projects, ideas turned to unrealized memory, hard work turned to dust and ash, lifestyles changed and released. You told us to always remember that these are stages too, part of the game, part of the universe. You hinted that there just might be a divine plan maybe much grander and more wonderful than our own.

Michael Jordan's Head
I have become addicted to a small voice leaking into an empty room. I need musical accompaniment in my everyday toils. I need the volume turned up when I am in the shower, and I need it turned low as I fall asleep, but I am learning that there is always a breaking point, an impulsive moon that changes my tide. Here is one such episode for your amusement.

Overhead Casting
Dear Mr. Deprado,

I don’t know what I am learning right now, and for the first time, I feel like I have little to bring you except some notes scribbled into a 99-cent store journal. There is war, for better or for worse. You would say that history will be the measure of the truth in all of it, but I don’t feel like I have time to wait for history, to talk this over with my kids and then decide if the war was a good idea or not. I want the truth now.

The Bully
Dear Mr. Deprado,
Did you ever look down from your podium and wonder how Kevin Brewer went from being the nerdy clarinet player in seventh grade, to the cool skater-punk in eighth grade? How could this quiet kid, just by learning to skateboard and use foul language, become an influence in our tiny world? It is probably just a matter of what we all went through at that age, the struggle to survive against the bullies in our world.

Socrates’ Trench Coat
You said, "Listen to me now—even if you have never listened to me before—because what I am going to tell you will change your life! Socrates said that there is a simple and obvious truism: if there is no natural law and the only law is the law of the state—and the people are the state—then the individual or the group is never right in rebelling or changing it. If the right is created by the state, then can it ever be right to oppose the state?"

To Nap, Perchance To Dream
Mr. Deprado,

I don't think you ever told us that we might have to spend much of our adult lives waking up this early. Sometimes before dawn—in the name of whatever—we get up and move ourselves to the refrigerator—where—if we are lucky we have enough milk for cereal, or enough bread—maybe just the heels—for alleged toast.

But there have been times when the hour I went to sleep and the hour I went to bed did not configure to the appropriate—NASA, FDA, NBA, CIA, NCSA, APA, MLA, or even FBI recommended amount of sleep—not even the four hours required by Bruce Lee—sometimes (especially in College) there wasn't time to sleep—only time to do other things like prove...

Living In The Bubble
Mr. Deprado,

Why didn't we learn about psychology when we were in eighth grade? I mean… would it have hurt for us to know much of our adult lives would be spent looking over our shoulders and back into those very young days trying to simply understand how we became who we are now? If we had only known how important our actions were we might have stood a chance, we might have been "productive citizens," we might have actually spent all that free time reading or studying computers, or practicing pick-up lines, or working out and practicing our sport, or stuck with ballroom dancing class—

The Time Machine
In Eighth Grade, Mr. DePrado read us The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. When he read, we rode on new wings through time and space—Mr. Deprado would act out the whole book through his thick black moustache and the wrinkles on his balding head would scrunch up when he imitated the terror of the Morlocks, and his eyes would open wide gesturing as the Eloi might have—simple and naïve.

"Morlocks and Eloi" he told us, "it’s that simple. It’s about balance. Dark and light. The Eloi, who live in a simple, graceful society—live in fear of the night because of the subterranean Morlocks, who only live in darkness, groping around in the dark, struggling, plotting, waiting to emerge."...

Girls
Dear Mr. Deprado,

How come you never explained to us that there would be times when all we knew would seem suddenly transparent—eggshells instead of steel or even cardboard—why didn’t you tell us that even in the very year, just after 8th grade, that we would start to see things that would lure us from what had driven us so far?

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