Started: Plymouth
Ended: Chicago
Total Distance: Driving 267 miles, Running 1 mile
Official start to the road trip? End of leg one of the road trip? Day before the start of the road trip? Hard to say, but what is for certain is that we’ve acquired a car: the two tons[1] of Detroit Muscle we like to call my Uncle Rocco’s 2012 white Ford Fusion. Rolled the odometer to zero and hit the road around 10:30. After one stop at the Panera Bread in Niles (I don’t know why, but many years ago when I had a car and would make the drive back semi-regularly, I would just often stop at Panera, especially this one in Niles).
Originally, this was a short stop for the purpose of packing and that’s it, leaving for Apple Canyon early tomorrow morning. But plans change.
A former student died last week. He was 20 and graduated with the class of 2015s, my advisory class and the class for whom I was the 11th grade lead. I had the honor to teach this young man math for a semester/quarter. Emily, then the newly minted math/science Dean of Instruction, pulled out seven juniors with IEPs who had been in geometry and created a special pull out class taught by me (during my extra prep) and Emily or Alexa in some rotation. Leon was one of these scholars as he had missed a great deal of school up to this point. He had suffered burns as a young man and spent a lot of time since then in and out of the hospital and so he was pretty behind in math. He didn’t like and in his charming, jokey way would consistently try to talk his way out of learning math for the period. I’m not going to lie, he would make me laugh hard enough sometimes that we would indeed stop for a bit. As a senior, on the bus ride back from the ski trip, he was just yelling out roasts at everyone, especially Christian Rivera. To this day every time I heard, “I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” I immediately remember a Leon-ism, “I’m drinking what you’re squeezing.” His funeral is tomorrow[2] and will mean a later start to our trip than we planned.
You’re a great guy Leon. I’m grateful to have known you and to have taught you. I’ll miss you, kid.
[1] Give or take
[2] Full disclosure, I’m writing this as if it weren’t Thursday, but it’s really Friday now after attending the funeral. I think it was a great service and it was truly great to see all the people whose lives Leon touched. A young lady at the camp he attended said that as a burn victim, meeting Leon is what helped turn her life around. I also love and was so happy to see many of the 2015s come out (and Ryan and Kristopher!) Kyra said it, “Why did we wait for a funeral to have a reunion?” This was just a reminder of what a profound impact this class of students and group of adults had on my life. And how lucky to share in and be a part of something so special.