It was nice to see the old high-school stomping grounds again, but I was stunned at the few teachers that were still teaching there since I left eight years ago. Mrs. Teacher who reads this (not naming you for a reason), you might do well to send a resume to St. Rita... :) Or not. I was also surprised at the number of young women teaching there. We had maybe one or two young women teaching or coaching when I went, and any guy who had them for a class or sport was the envy of many others. Now, it seems, there are many to "go around." Remember, St. Rita is an all-boys gig...

I was happy to see Dr. Kisicki, whose nickname (Dr. K!) was borrowed for "South Side Andy and the Baha'i Temple." He's my third-favorite teacher, behind only Dr. Don Racky, who passed away a year or two ago and who was my homeroom and English teacher 3 of 4 years and the newspaper moderator, and Jim Misiora, my junior-year history teacher and the only teacher I'd ever really consider a good friend. Mr. Miz died last year also, quite unexpectedly in his 40s. He was the teacher who joined my fantasy baseball league the first year I ran it, and then when I had a BBQ in the fall to give out the awards, Miz and his wife showed up at my parents' house, brought all sorts of food and cooked and everything. He was simply a great, great man who treated me, Tim, and Eddie excellently. He's probably the best friend teacher I've ever had...no one comes close. Doc Racky is by far the best teaching teacher ever, and he's the man who helped me realize I could write and should study journalism, though he did not pressure me into it. Dr. K has bits of both. Of course, Dr. K remembers me and Tim, and had Eddie in his honors English class this year...his big schtick, or at least it used to be, is to give all his students and any others he interacts with nicknames. Mine was, simply, the name you all hate, Handy Andy. I couldn't be South Side Andy then, because, well, we all were from the South Side, or the area at least. Dr. K has this booming laugh that is unmistakable and was very audible in the cafeteria full of people talking after the ceremony today. I missed that laugh. And it's not a patronizing laugh either if you can hear it across the room...he's deeply amused. :) He's also was the man I went to in an attempt to film part of "South Side Andy" in the school's basement, and he really pushed for it. But the board, or whoever, turned it down because of liability and all. So the first thing he asked me was how the movie-making business was...I said, well, it's dried up, but only because that was a one-time deal.

At any rate, it was good to see the couple of faculty members who taught me and Eddie and Tim and remembered me. It's amazing how some of those folks can be with their memories. There's a priest there who's really old--Father McNicholas (Fr. McNick)--but I could walk up to him, even though I didn't have a ton of interaction with him while I was in school there, and he'll know me by name and everything. It's stunning. It's that amazing family-like atmosphere that makes me want to find some way to get back involved there...I was going to ask Dr. K if they needed an assistant football coach or something...but I'll save that for later. :)