Not long ago, on a Saturday night, I was enjoying dinner with my wife and children at a Pizzeria Uno in Smithfield. Toward the end of our meal, a couple was leaving and as they passed our table, the gentleman stopped and gave me a big hello.
“Mr. Pare,” he said. “How have you been?”
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“Great, Mr. Johnson, and you?” I said.
Mr. Johnson had been my seventh grade English teacher at Martin Junior High School in East Providence some 25 years ago. Now, he remembered me in part because in recent years I have been a regular guest of Frank Coletta on NBC-10 and he had seen me several times.
But I remembered him well. He looked the same. We enjoyed catching up with one another.
After Mr. Johnson left, I remembered something I had in my wallet. I wished I had shown him. It was a little yellow Post-it note with the title “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell written on it. I’d been meaning to find that story somewhere, perhaps the next time I visited the library. I wanted to read it again. I last read it with Mr. Johnson – in seventh grade.
I don’t remember now all of the details of the story of the celebrated hunter, Sanger Rainsford, and his encounter with a madman after being shipwrecked on an island in the Caribbean. But I remember I loved it. I also remember how passionate Mr. Johnson was when we covered it in class. He used a booming voice and seemed to truly love not only the story, but the opportunity to build a lesson around it.
I wish I had told Mr. Johnson about that Post-it note in my wallet – about how I was anxious to read that story again. I think he would have liked that.
That little story may or may not make sense to you. But it’s got a lot to do with why this is – for the time being – my last column.
After 17 years as a print journalist, I will soon begin a new career – one centered on education.
I’ve accepted an offer to become Director of Career Academies at Dorcas Place, an adult literacy center in Providence. My goal there will be to work with area businesses to find out what skills they want to see in Dorcas Place students and then to help those students find jobs.
It’s something different for me. But I’m excited about the challenge. I like the fact, that in the end, the goal is fairly simple. Help these determined adults find jobs and I am a success. Fail to do so, and I am not. I like that. I also like that I will be working with the students, getting to know them. For most, something got in the way of their education somewhere along the way. But they’ve decided not to accept that, they’ve decided they deserve better – and they do.
I was also attracted to this opportunity because I see it as a natural step toward a larger goal that I have, to become an English teacher. Over the next couple of years I will be taking classes at Providence College to earn a teacher’s certificate. Hopefully, after building up the Career Academy program at Dorcas Place into a thriving job development engine, I’ll be ready to step into a high school classroom.
Of course, to get something you really want, you usually have to give something up.
Deciding to give up being editor of Providence Business News wasn’t easy.
I arrived here more than a decade ago. Over the years I have worked with some wonderful people. And there couldn’t possibly be a better place to be a journalist than Rhode Island. Where else do you bump into the governor at Sand Hill Cove or at a URI basketball game (I met former Gov. Almond at both of those places) or reminisce about your experiences at LaSalle Academy with a U.S. senator? (Jack Reed loves talking about our alma mater.)
I’m certainly going to miss writing this column. I was always touched when one of you called or e-mailed me with feedback. If you didn’t know this, writers have huge egos. Nothing makes us feel better than to know that you actually read something we wrote.
So, thanks for listening.
I don’t expect that a career in education is going to be easy. But I like that it is going to provide an opportunity to leave an impression – a lasting impression.
Like the one Mr. Johnson left on me. n
