the Way of the Turtle

An Incredibly Thoughtful Gift
Thursday, September 28, 2006

This is very cool. One of the students from my AP Physics class last year, Paul, has really gotten into doing triathlons, and was talked into doing the Musselman Half Ironman Triathlon out in Geneva this past July. We talked about it a bit at the start of the school year (he loved it and apparently did quite well!) and I commented on a Frazz cartoon on some of his schwag. Turns out Jef Mallett (the cartoonist who does Frazz) was the guest speaker at Musselman this year (he's a triathlete) and the T-shirts featured a Frazz cartoon. I commented on how I thought that was pretty darn cool and left it at that.

Today Paul came up to me, said he'd learned that they had a bunch of extra shirts left over after the race, and gave me a long-sleeved T and a Frazz book that he'd gotten for me. I can't even begin to describe how much that touched me. All I could say at the time was "Wow" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" He was apologetic that Mallett hadn't autographed them, but that really doesn't matter to me. The fact that one of my students was willing to go to that kind of effort for me - well, "wow" and "thank you" barely begin to cover it.

Sometimes I shake my head at the things my kids do... teenagers are just so darn stupid sometimes! Thanks, Paul, for thinking of me and reminding me that there are some really great kids are there. Wow. Thank you!!!!!

JMH