People Who Died

When I was student teaching, a young sophomore girl in one of the history classes I was teaching at a very small rural high school was reading The Basketball Diaries. She was a bit of an outsider, let's say. Smart, funny, weird, literate - my kind of kid.

I made her day, became her favorite teacher ever (I exaggerate, to make myself feel better) by asking her how she liked it. She was amazed I knew the book, that I'd read it and even more amazed when I started telling her about his poetry and his music. She didn't know Carroll was also a singer - I told her about this song, one of my all-time faves.

So, for making a small-town girl feel better, Jim - thank you. For helping me make a connection with a great kid, thank you. I still see her around town, in fact I expect I'll be seeing her next week. We have something, someone, to talk about again.