Thursday, December 4, 2008

My Very Good, Absolutely Wonderful Day


I had the best day yesterday! During my 5th hour class, a couple of my former students dropped in on my classroom. You see, one of the things I lost when the tornado hit was a poster I had of George Brett. George, stud Royal player, had been hanging in my room for 22 years so I was pretty sad when I saw him lying in all the debris and ruined beyond salvaging. I wrote the Royals organization over the summer by snail mail, hoping they could replace it but never heard a word. Fast forward to yesterday...

Shanon L, 88 grad, came by with an exact replica of the poster I had-- only this one was framed!! Shanon and I had bonded over Brett when she was a sophomore. She was in my class the year the Royals won the World Series (fall 85) and even attended the game that cinched it. She brought me a Brett button from that game and my poster came from her Dad's car dealership. (I think!! 22 years later, I hope I am remembering this all correctly.) She had emailed the Royals and got ahold of a guy there who helped her out. He wanted to know what my poster looked like, so she took my photo of the destroyed poster off my Facebook and sent it to him. Since my poster was a 7-Up ad from 1980, they didn't have it but he got on ebay and located a poster like it. He sent her the link. Shanon bid on it, won it, and framed it for me. So my George Brett poster is hanging in my room again! (And do I need to tell you that yes, I cried in front of my class!) I can't begin to tell you how awesome that was, but it gets even better.

The guy from the Royals said that they wanted to do something for me, too. So they sent Shanon a baseball autographed by George Brett to give to me when she gave the poster. Beth G. (also class of 88) was on hand to snap photos. This will definitely go down as one of those unforgettable days in my classroom. I was so touched by Shanon's thoughtfulness. Yep, I love my job!! I have gotten to work with a lot of incredible people over the last 31 years--and they rarely find me at a loss for words, but this... well, I'm still amazed!

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