Back in summer of 1994, I orchestrated a move from central Kentucky to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. The impetus was my budding love affair with my ex-, and the move required me securing employment. The short of it is that I was hired by Montgomery Public Schools to teach 4th grade. I was hired after the start of the school year to fill a position that was just allotted to a school to alleviate over-crowding and so my homeroom was created out of the 3 existing homerooms. I ended up with a class of 23 (15 boys --12 of which were headed to a career involving reform school at some point, and 8 girls -- another 3 of which where clear candidates for some future episode of "cellblock H")!
Among this motley crew was T. He was boy with tremendous social intelligence, a gift that he used without the benefit of any discernable moral compass. I am not a professional with the credentials to certify anyone as being "pathological" in anything, but the word was bandied about freely regarding T. by those with classier degrees than I.
And so today, when I stumbled upon "The Bugr qekr" a flip book that he made in art, a book that quickly ended up in my "June Box" because of its deleterious effects on the social fabric of my classroom when it first debuted back in the spring of 1994, I was much more nostalgic in my recollections of T.'s tenure in my class.
In reflecting upon him (I still can see his impish smile clearly in my mind’s eye) I hope that he's landed gently somewhere and found a place in this life where his talents and manias can contribute to the common good. And in any event, marvel with me at his superb narrative, riveting plot twists, and profound sense of the needs and desires of the common man: I give you with tongue firmly planted in my cheek, "The Bugr qekr".
