Easy Ev

Three months after graduating from college in 1969, I was teaching the twenty-seven member sixth grade class at Most Holy Trinity School.  I was still twenty-one years old, and my students were, for the most part, eleven.  That group has always held a special place in my heart because they were my first class.  I recently found out the sad news that one of "my kids," Evan Bower, died unexpectedly at age 57 on July 31.  Evan lived most of his adult life in Colorado with his wife and son.  He worked as a trouble shooter for a computer company, which sent him on projects all over the country.  To my knowledge, Evan is the only student from that cherished class to have passed away.

A celebration of Evan's life was held two weekends ago at the Gearty-Delmore funeral chapel.  The "ceremony" was hosted by Evan's twin, Kevin, who was also in that sixth grade class.  Most of Evan's five siblings spoke, recalling incidents especially from their young lives growing up together on France Avenue in St. Louis Park.  The stories were lighthearted and heartfelt, and laughter filled the small room several times.  Many of the siblings affectionately referred to their departed brother as "Easy Ev," a fitting nickname given his laid back personality.  After the brothers and sisters spoke, Kevin invited any of those present to share a story or a memory about Evan.  One person, who I believe was their neighbor, spoke briefly and haltingly.  Afterwards, notwithstanding Kevin's repeated invitation, it did not appear that anyone else was going to step forward.

I did not go to the service intending to speak, but I did have a story in mind which I thought folks might enjoy hearing.  After waiting for what seemed like thirty or forty seconds, I put up my paw, Kevin smiled and told me I had the floor.  This is the little story I told.

***

I was Evan and Kevin's sixth grade teacher during the 1969-70 school year.  Having just finished college, I was only ten years older than my students and this was my first class.  The principal who hired me, Sister Ruth, thought a first year teacher like me could use some advice, so she offered these two recommendations before the first day of school.  First, establish your rules from Day One, and be strict in enforcing them.  Then, as the school year goes by, if your good judgment tells you that you can relax the rules a little, go ahead and do so incrementally.  But starting out leniently, thinking you can get tougher if need be, is not a good strategy.

Her second pearl of wisdom was this: Don't play favorites.  It is a long school year and you will have twenty-seven students.  On most days during the course of the year there will be something that either happens or doesn't happen which, due to human nature, will make you want to treat certain students either more favorably or less favorably than most of their classmates.  That is a bad policy, and don't think the kids won't notice.  You must deal with all of your students even-handedly, regardless of their academic achievement, behavior, attitude, or what-have-you.

Sister Ruth's advice -- warnings might be a better word -- made perfect sense to me, and I did my best to adhere to them.  My job was to get these kids ready for junior high.  I knew a rookie teacher would not have all the answers, so I welcomed this guidance from my veteran principal.

It was common in those days for a lot of the kids to hang around after school and have, more or less, a bull session right there in the classroom.  One of the hot topics that fall and winter was the phenomenal season the Minnesota Vikings were having.  The Vikes ended the regular season with a record of 12-2, and their first playoff game was scheduled to be played in old Metropolitan Stadium, with a seating capacity of only 47,900.  It would be the first time in their young history they'd ever hosted a playoff game.  The opponent would be the Los Angeles Rams, and many fans were eager to see how those softies from tropical southern California would fare in the brutal cold of Minnesota.  The home games were not televised locally due to the seventy-five mile radius blackout rule imposed by the NFL.  The demand for tickets was so high that the team could easily have sold out a stadium nearly twice the size of The Met.

On the second-to-last school day before Christmas vacation, and a few days before that playoff game, Evan and Kevin were in a large group congregated around my desk after school, and the discussion turned to Christmas presents.  The kids were telling me what they bought for their family members, and what they hoped to receive.  The twins told me that their father worked for Triple A, and if I wanted anything from there they could get it for me as a present.  I figured they were talking about something like a state highway map, a key chain, or perhaps a window decal.  I jokingly replied, "Okay, how 'bout two tickets on the fifty for the Rams game?"  Everyone laughed and the gabfest continued.

The next morning I arrived in my classroom about fifteen minutes before the bell.  Eight or nine students, including the Bower boys, were already there.  On top of my desk was a business envelope with the Triple A logo in the corner.  In the middle of the envelope the following was handwritten: "Mister P, 2 on the 50."  It wasn't until I opened the envelope and found two fifty yard line seats to the big game that I realized the writing on the envelope was not a hoax.  There they were, two playoff tickets that thousands of die hard Vikings fans would have given anything to possess.  I was astonished and flabbergasted.  Evan and Kevin had smiles from ear to ear, as did I.

Class resumed two weeks later.  During that respite I thought about those two guiding principles Sister Ruth had given me.  I concluded that it was going to be pretty tough for me to comply with her second warning for the remainder of the school year.