One Never Knows

One never knows

There weren’t too many in Orvieto those years who spoke English. It must have been the late 1960s or early 70s. There was the language school, equivalent of high school. They needed someone called “a reader”, who would come once a week to lend a hand to the regular teacher and they called me in. With the lower grades it was pretty elementary, based mostly on pronunciation, in particular the “the” sounds. They also say that the word “squirrel” is particularly daunting. It was most fun with the fifth-year class where I could do pretty much what I wanted. I could read something from a newspaper, or have the students translate one of their favorite recipes into English. The most hilarious was when “tiramisu” (now pretty much universally known by that name) was translated as “throw me up”. A few years later when I was teaching in a trade school, all boys, our grammar book got to the possessives. The example given was “I play with my balls, you play with your balls”. Have no idea what the author of that grammar book had in mind, since one of the meanings of the word, whether in Italian or in English, does not refer to a child’s plaything. We sure got through that lesson fast. To get back to my language high school, where we even did a reading of The Importance of Being Earnest. And one week I somehow got on the subject of disregarding what other people said, criticism, maybe even slander. You know, I told the students, often it’s just that your classmates are jealous. I didn’t realize then that I had hit the mark. One of the prettiest girls at the end of the year wrote me a note, which I must still have somewhere. She said she had felt alone, cast out by the other students. But when I talked about how others saw us, she realized it was not her fault but that they envied her because she was pretty and outgoing. I was teaching English, yes, but also trying to understand their problems.

Perhaps as we go on with our lives, we never do realize the influence we may have on others. How what we observe and write may help others to see the world in a new and different light. Unawares, we are always engaged in conversations with the others. 

And these types of relationships and friendships are what provide meaning to life. When the grandson of an acquaintance of mine asked him Why are we here? What are we here for? the only answer he could come up with was that we are here to help one another, perhaps the only answer. 

Thank you Jerry and thank you David