The Secret Life of Hobo Teacher

There are just some days when HT just can't burn the midnight oil, so I leave school at a normal time (there's still daylight). Believe it or not, but that can be demoralizing because I have to pass the student parking to get to the teacher lot. I must say that SLHS students drive some pretty snazzy cars, which makes me feel bad because all this time I've been talking about how my students should work harder. Now it has become evident that they've been working every waking hour just to make the payments on their cars. That is, unless they don't pay for them--wait a second...

On the other hand, the teacher lot looks like the set of Sanford and Son. The only thing missing is me being called a, "big dummy." (After all, I don't get called that every day.) All of the teachers' automobiles are so old that they may have been built by Ford. No, not Ford Motors, but Henry himself. So how do you combat caviar dreams with a government cheese budget? You do it with the good old imagination, that's how. I just think back to that 1989 classic Road House. In that film James Dalton, The Double Duece's head bouncer, drives a fine car. You say, "But HT, with a job like bouncing, Dalton could risk payback from ill-willed patrons of The Double Duece in the form of--maybe--vandalism of his car!" You're right and that does happen in the film, but Dalton is two steps ahead by driving a different, already damaged vehicle; thus, he doesn't really suffer at all.

And that's what I like to imagine for myself, while making the trek out to my car. I'm just a bouncer for knowledge, keeping the undesirables out of the minds of my students. If that means that I have to drive home in less than desired means, then so be it because "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." Wait--that was a different movie.