Legacies

High school memories center mostly around my triangle of friends, my extra-curricular activities, my family, my, my, my. A few projects, a few orchestra pieces still have a spot in my head, but much of the information I learned in school has long since leaked out and soaked into the floor.

Here are a few things I remember:

I can still recite the first two stanzas of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" thanks to Mr. Chu, the first two stanzas of "The Raven" thanks to Mr. Greeley, most of Hamlet's To Be or Not To Be soliloquy and the opening lines of MACBETH thanks to my dad.

I can still play pieces of the Brandenburg Concertos and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by memory, thanks to Susan Horst and Fred Mayer.

I can say I read a lot of American and British literature thanks to Mrs. Harris, though I don't remember many details and I'm sure I skimmed a lot. She also introduced me to A Prairie Home Companion, which has been a constant through the years.

I can draw a decent likeness of pretty much anything (if I'm looking at it) thanks to Mr. Groves.

I can look across the table at my husband of 22+ years thanks to Mr. Dennis (who split me up from my triangle of friends and stuck me with the new boy on a physics project).

And I can tell if an argument is sound or not thanks to Mr Ferrell. At the time, I had no idea what logical fallacies had to do with anything. In hindsight, though, learning how to recognize a slippery slope, a bandwagon, and a begged question has had more to do with real life than almost anything else I learned in school.

Mr. Ferrell passed away last week, but the concepts he taught live on.