Latin saved my soul

When I was 16 or so I was having a hard time in school. I was a kid in transition in many ways and there were very few adults that understood me. My teachers thought I was a disruptive foul mouthed joker. My somewhat catholic upbringing seemed boring as hell (or heaven for that matter) but somehow I went to this church that had drums and guitars. The people at this assembly of god church I was going to had seen a kid in need and reached out to me. I had many intense spiritual experiences which caused me to look deeper at my self and my relationship with god and this world. I had a lot of questions about life and I felt like school was just so damn boring. I eventually quit school and started working in a print shop and a record store. My parents were devastated. And worst of all my church instilled in me something which took a long time to get over. An emotion called fear. Fear was the motivator. Fear of going to hell. Fear of backsliding. Fear of sinning. Fear of sex. Fear of drugs. Fear of rock and roll. Unfortunately these fears began to pervert and eventually destroy my relationship with god as I perceived it. Pardon the mixed metaphor, but like the thorns in the famed garden parable they clouded the once effortless window I once had into the world beyond this physical world of dirt. These fears led me to judge others as harshly as I was judging myself. When you are told over and over again that the flesh is weak and evil and all mankind is born into sin and evil it effects your self image and as any therapist will tell you that will effect your image of others. I was so indoctrinated to not be “of this world” that I had come to feel isolated and denied myself of so many of the things that were quite normal for a teenager to feel. Although this attitude was in some ways responsible for me stopping my use of drugs, and for that I am kind of thankful, it never really lasted and when I got older it lead to more confusion and I did return for a little while to smoking weed. But I didn't want to talk too much about drugs now....I wanted to tell you about Latin. Because it was not jesus and a cross that plucked me from the fires of my hell...It was a savior named Georges and an overhead projector. Georges Desrosiers (French spelling on purpose) was my French teacher in 9th and 10th grade. He was probably the most difficult and demanding teacher at the school...but really the coolest. He would wear concert T-shirts to school and told us all about foreign films he had seen as he taught us not only the French Language but about the country itself. He showed us slides of his many trips there and he did all of this with the strangest sense of humor. He actually laughed with us when we learned the Latin word “Facio”. I would pass him in the hall and say “Hey Georges...Facio.” His reply was of course “Facio too!” But for all the jokes, man he was pretty tough on all of us in terms of work. Students that normally “got by” in other classes with B’s and C’s would find themselves flunking Georges classes. I was one of those students. But the thing was that Georges reached out to me. When all the other teachers would kick me out of class for laughing, disturbing class, and telling obscene jokes...Georges rarely kicked me out of class. He would give me detention and make me do my work. He psychoanalyzed me publicly telling me and the whole class that: “Mr Morello is an infantile megalomaniac. He craves attention. Do you like to see us all suffer Mr. Morello. I can’t tell if you are a sadist or a masochist. Tell me more about this god you believe in Mr. Morello. Are you like most christians Mr. Morello. Do you want to worship god...Or do you want to beeeee Gaawwwwwwd. BUT you Mr. Morello are very funny. You have a natural comic timing. You could be the NEXT LENNY BRUCE! Mr. Morello see me after class!” So after class Georges made a deal with me. He said that I was very funny but I need to do some things. He said that he was glad the court made me go back to school but that I need to actually show up at school every day...not just two times a week to keep "juvie" off my back. He said that he was NOT going to kick me out of class for disturbing the others. He said if you want attention I’ll give it you. I will give you 5-10 minutes at the beginning or end of every class if you would like to tell jokes.Review movies.Do funny scenes from Bill Murray movies. Whatever.The floor would be mine...IF IF IF I would settle down and concentrate in class. Deal? HelI yeah I said. So i began to craft little 5-10 minute sets. I began to memorize cartoons and movies and impersonations. And I accidentally learned Latin in the process. Whoops. I began to care about my grades. I began to go to school EVERY DAY because I wanted to be in Georges class. Once I began to go every day I began to take other classes a little more seriously and by the time my senior year came around Georges asked me about two things. College and the school play. He told me the school play was needing someone funny so he introduced me to the director. I didn't really trust any other teachers and adults that much but Georges said he was cool. So I auditioned and was cast and had a blast. It changed my life. It got me involved in something bigger than myself. It got me meeting other students. It got me talking about my life and stuff with other teachers who treated me with respect and who saw potential in me when I didn't really see it in myself. Mr. Clancy, Mr. Healy, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Morill, Mr. Genese...Man it changed my whole life. I realize now that the main reason I was smoking weed before that was I was bored and unhappy with my reality. So I wanted to do things to alter that reality. Looking back it was those times with Georges in Latin class and after school detention that I began to look at myself differently. I began to feel like I could offer this world something. That I could make a difference and that I did indeed have talents. I began to feel that, unlike what a lot of the judgmental church people told me, laughter and rock and roll was what made life a total blast. I actually ended up going on field trips.... to concerts, man. Georges took like four or five students to go see groups like The Kinks, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, U2, Judas Priest. It was amazing as I began to go to concerts with kids from school and NOT get high. By the end of my senior year I was on my way to college to major in theater and I said goodbye to my school and Latin and Georges. Some years passed. I got into doing stand up across the country. I eventually bought the box set of Lenny Bruce’s stand up material. I got married. I wrote the show dirt and began to perform that around the country. Especially enjoying the shows where I could look out and see those one or two students that reminded me of myself growing up. One night I returned home and the wife and I decided we would go to see this Folk Music singer named Bill Morrissey. We got there and sat in the front row. At the intermission I was frozen in my tracks as I heard a voice from behind. “John.” "Mr Morello!” I turned around and there was Georges. He was a little grayer but looked the same. I gave him a huge hug and introduced him to my wife and chatted about old times. But I took time during our conversation to let him know how much he meant to me and what his life at my school did for me. I told him that he and his Latin class changed my life! We parted agreeing to get together soon... And unfortunately that was the last time I saw him. I learned from his nephew Roger ( the history teacher at my old high school) that Georges had developed stomach cancer and passed away. Unbelievable. He was pretty young too. In his sixties I guess...Too soon. But as with any passing I try not to mourn too much, rather I try to be thankful for the fact that this person was even in my life for the time they were. I think of the difference he made in so many student's lives and I sure hope he passed away with that calm assurance that his life is eternal through all of his students. I think of Latin whenever I look at root words of the English language or I go to mass. I think of Latin whenever I listen to The Kinks or Judas Priest. I think of Latin whenever I watch obscure foreign films like Harold and Maude. I think of Latin when I listen to Lenny Bruce. I think of me whenever I look out at an audience and see one kid sitting in the back with his hood pulled over his eyes. I think of the movie Rushmore in which Max Fischer brags that he saved Latin. But most of all I think of Georges and know that he saved me.