This is my first very post from my very first blog! Wow!

I've been thinking about blogging for some time now and have viewed a few from my friends such as that of former student Mike Bazemore, a very bright and funny guy, whom I admire and highly recommend: http://intothedeepwater.blogspot.com/

I have been a high school English teacher in Newport News for the past 36 years. When I recently set up a Facebook account, something magical occurred right away. I had often wondered over the years about many of the 5000+ students I've taught, last seeing them usually when they were 17 or 18, and never seeing or hearing from them again, except for a few. Were they alive or dead? What type of lives had they had since high school? Happy? Unhappy? How did they now regard me and high school? Well, as a result of FB, I have been connecting with many of them, some now in their 50's with grandchildren. I get to see their pictures, hear about their lives, see how they look today, and how they've changed or not over the years.

I have often wondered whether I made a positive impact on them or not, especially since many people today speak so disparagingly of their high school experience, or so it seems. However, I've been getting tremendous validation from many students who are telling me that, yes, they appreciated me and, yes, I did make a positive difference.

I remember as a child watching one of the original episodes of "The Twilight Zone," the one titled "The Changing of the Guard," about an old English teacher (Donald Pleasence) who has doubts at the end of his career, as I have had. Ghosts of some of his deceased students appear to him and give him the validation he needs so that he can retire and have peace of mind that what he did was worthwhile and was greatly appreciated. I was only 12 when I first saw it, and I just recently viewed it again online at Comcast, realizing now that way back then it was showing me a peek of my future. I wish Rod Serling were still alive so that I could share this with him. I think he'd like that and be amazed of the impact "TZ" has had on millions of fans.

One former student, Tim Fasano, who goes all the way back to 1974 when I first started teaching, just got in touch with me via FB, and now we are playing chess again as we did when I was sponsoring the chess club then; he was also active in the plays I directed as head of drama, "Dark of the Moon" and "Rebel Without a Cause." He's leading an fascinating life that includes transportation work, blogs, and field work in the Florida swamps as he seeks to document evidence of a "bigfoot" type creature there. I have also got in touch with his twin brother Tom Fasano, who's an English teacher himself out in California, who recently published a book on the early poetry of Robert Frost, which was an Amazon.com best seller among poetry books. I hate it when I hear someone say, "Those who can't, teach." Tom can and does, and his children are also blessed to have him as a dedicated teacher.

Tim and I have just begun a correspondence chess game (up to 3 days per move). I am reminded of how many years ago I was an active postal chess player and at times had over a dozen games in progress all over the world. We postal players would send our moves on post cards and had 3 days upon receipt of a move to get our reply back in the mail. A game then would typically take 3 months to about 2 years to complete. We had to be patient!

I discovered at the time that one of my postal opponents was Jill Grenzer of Baltimore, "age 6 1/2 and I will be 7 in 2 months." I suspect her father, an MD, assisted her some with her moves, although I couldn't prove it. Jill and I played two games at once: she amazingly won one, but we never finished the other, if I remember correctly.And I actually got to meet her when the family vacationed at Colonial Williamsburg. Aside from her extraordinary chess ability, she seemed to a normal little girl who lived Barbie dolls, whom she spoke of in notes on post cards with her chess moves. I knew of a place here that custom made wooden bedroom furniture just to Barbie's scale. I had some made that I gave to her as a birthday present and she was delighted. That too, was over 30 years ago. Maybe someday our paths will cross again.

Of course, today I can go online to a game site and play chess games in real time, sometimes blitz games (games with short time limits), 5 or 1o minutes, total. Those games are like mental workouts and don't rise to the level of sophistication the slower games can evoke, which many players do not want to commit to, it seems, in today's fast-paced world, one that includes 24/7 texting, sending/receiving email, surfing the net , grooving to IPOD tunes, playing video games, and driving at dangerously high speeds on the freeway, all at the same time!

This is what summer is for me, a time of reflection, a chance to look back, connect, and be amazed about the times of our lives and how they all go by so quickly, as Emily observes at the end of "Our Town," another play I once directed. Summer for teachers--at least for me--is a sort of limbo as we purge our sins and guilt, recharge our batteries, and hope we'll have enough juice to carry that charge to the end of the next school year, and, I hope, do a better job of not mixing the metaphors!

Best Wishes Until Next Time,

Tom Stroup