Yesterday the BF and I went to see the documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN and, after being reminded just how good my small town education was compared to the dizzying statistics the movie puts forth about just how illiterate the vast majority of up and coming students are, I received a text from my best childhood friend Kristen that our music/drama/band teacher from our days at Mosinee High School had passed away that morning.
Now the man, Bob Hansen, was not a saint. There will be no statue erected in his honor. No marching band. But there should be.
But he made it so much more than it could have been.
While managing a full band and full choir department with two concerts for each every year, he managed to put together a fall one act play for state competition, dozens of performers for the annual "Solos and Ensembles" contests and a spring musical; and then, during some summers when he wasn't traveling abroad, he would put together a swing choir - he was a heavier, older Mr. Shue if you will - and start weeks before the school year to get the marching band in ready-shape for the Labor Day parade. He participated in numerous church services throughout the year, taking a small group of us from church to church to provide choral music at the various churches in town, mostly though on Sunday mornings at the Lutheran church where I was a member.
With Anne, who was his partner in art and eventually his wife, ran the department, and the band room with an iron fist. Moreover, they created the ‘bandroom’ (everyone in town knew what that was, even adults) as a space where everyone could come on their lunch hour or instead of study hall to practice.
Ok generally, fool around.
And study. And then practice music, lines, instruments. In pretty much that order. But there’s something to be said for fostering a space at school where students really wanted to be. And we all wanted to be there. And we knew that it was a privilege, not a right. Many a friendship formed, many many great times were had in the bandroom, lots of drama (it’s where I hid out the one and only time I played hookey from any class - gym class when the bullying from the jocks got to be too much – “Mr. Altenburg, I’m just letting you know I don’t see you” Bob said as he passed by me assuming I’d work it out on my own which I did) and many roles and music rehearsed (again, in pretty much that order).
However it was not all fun and games.
Sometimes Bob's frustration at student’s lack of preparation would become demonstrative complete with fits of rage, white spittle in the corners of his mouth and sometimes, as was legendary, the throwing of music stands at students who were mouthing off or who, worse, had shown up to rehearsal unprepared. If that sounds harsh, consider that merit in a high school is just as important to a teacher as it is to the student. More so. The student values merit in social terms, the teacher, in financial terms.
I came from a small town that valued the football team above else and the music department was merely the halftime marching band to appeal to mothers dragged along to see their Johnny chased across the field by the opposing team. We made pretty pictures and Bob would chant "Hershey bar, Hersey bar Nestle CRUNCH!" But that's OK. The football players really just ran back and forth tossing a ball around and that's OK too. They had their cheerleaders and we had ours.
When Bob was relaxed, at ease, he was genuine, funny and personable. The twinkle in his baby blues would light up when students would arrive and his rapport with Miss Weir undeniably funny – they’d squabble, humorously so, most of the time, the way a long time couple does.
There was always the Big Gay Question hanging over our head about him - how could it not? Unmarried, lived with his mother until her death, undeniably artistic and artistically temperamental. But he was of That Generation that didn't ask Those Questions and after a certain point in life, if it was an issue, there was no opportunity to express oneself that way especially in a small Wisconsin town. Especially if you were religious. Well, you could, but it would be a lot of work. I was about 40 years younger than him and I've found that it's taken half my life just to get this far.
But I never felt sorry for Bob, he seemed to have a vibrant life, respected by the town and mostly getting to do the things he wanted to do... having a nice life with Anne and all his companions - the fathers and mothers of students and students who then became fathers and mothers themselves who then sent their children into his department. And on it went until Sunday. And everyone in town has a Bob story. And everyone in the world has their own version of Bob in their growing up.
Bob and I had our moments - there was the time he bribed me with a jelly bean to get me to tell who set a counter on fire (I can tell you now, Bob, it was Barb who was melting something with a sodering iron and it got out of hand); there was the time he unloaded onto me about a sketch comedy group that I was a part of and he felt left out of (on my 18th birhday no less; when I recounted the betrayal to my mom and she to the school principal, he response to me was "Next time don't quote me so accurately"); and there was the time that he pulled me aside after a summer rehearsal and gave me a lead role in a one act a couple weeks before auditions so that I would have extra time to learn the role.
Then there were the times when my father was deathly ill from chemo, that the bandroom was the one and only place on Earth that was still a safe, decent place to go. That safe place certainly wasn't the gymnasium.
It's easy to be hard on a hard driven teacher when they're riding you about not practicing.
It's especially hard when you're in high school and they seem unreasonable.
It's harder to forgive yourself for the years you didn't call or write when you find out they've passed and you can no longer tell them how much of an impact they've had on your life. I guess life doesn't really work like TO SIR WITH LOVE where a teacher gets their due in song at the end. But it should.
I like to think that Bob wasn't freaked out when he sat a few rows behind me at my sisters wedding in my hometown in 1998 and watched as I spontaneously kissed my then boyfriend Rob on the cheek - so moved was I by the ceremony for my sister, so in love with her fiancee that no one could help but be moved.
I like to think that maybe he saw that I was happy and was of a different world than he knew and that that was OK.
Two years earlier, in 1996, the Wausau children’s theatre produced a musical I'd written the libretto for and Bob and Anne were present, complete with gift, a Miss Piggy mug to evoke a practical joke Kristen and I had played at a high school concert (long story better saved for another time -- but it involves Miss Piggy showing up unexpectedly on the end of my hand in the middle of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. There was a vein in Bob's forehead I will never forget.. and the look he shot me. Deathly.)
Well, I knew that I was in his heart; so perhaps I shouldn't worry about him not knowing how much I'd appreciated them. He already knew.
About four years ago that mug broke when it slipped off my desk and onto the floor. I was heartbroken.
The handle had broken off and a big piece of the face had chipped away. It was a time in my life when everything was also chipped and broken.
But, remarkably, about a month ago, I was emptying out a bag of bottles into the recycle bin outside my apartment and discovered that someone had thrown away the exact intact Miss Piggy mug.
I could scarcely contain my utter joy and did something that probably most people wouldn't do: I plucked it out, ran back upstairs and soaked it in hot water for the next week and now use it as a change jar.
The mug now stands as an eternal symbol for me - not only for the driven artist determined to make a difference no matter what their place in the world is, but also as a testament to the fact that one can come back from being thrown away, can be cleaned up.. and live.
