In 1972, I returned to Miami Beach High School to speak to the drama class. Afterward I asked the drama teacher 21 any of my English teachers are still there. Irene Roberts, he tells me, is in the class 22 down the hall.
¡¡¡¡I was no one special in Miss Roberts’ class — just another student who did okay work. I don’t recall any one special bit of wisdom she passed on. Yet I cannot forget her 23 for language, for ideas and for her students. I 24 now, many years later, that she is the perfect example of a 25 teacher. I’d like to say something to her, I say, but I don’t want to 26 her from a class. Nonsense, he says, she’ll be 27 to see you.
¡¡¡¡The drama teacher 28 Miss Roberts into the hallway where stands this 32-year-old man she last saw at 18. “I’m Mark Medoff,” I tell her. “You were my 12th-grade English teacher in 1958.” She 29 her head to one side and looks at me, as if this angle might remember me in her 30 . And then, though armed with a message I want to 31 in many words, I can’t think up anything more memorable than this: “I want you to know,” I say, “you were 32 to me.”