Sometimes my life is Poco song.

I remember the Summer of 1988.

God, it was hot.

Northeast Missouri during the worst drought in 75 years, where the temps ran high as the sun was up and continued to scorch well into the night.  It rained on Memorial Day.....and didn't rain again until September.  The Mississippi went from the Mighty Miss to a stream you could walk across with five steps.  And the theatre housing I was living in did not have the air conditioning.

A few of us took to sleeping out on the deck at night.

I should mention I worked on a showboat.  But you can read about that in previous posts.

One day, during a break, the Artistic Director called me aside and asked if I had any teaching experience.  And, of course, I lied about how much experience I actually had, relying upon my experiences as a theatre director and a class or two I TA'd during undergrad.  But I DID have a Master's Degree, and everybody knows that such a degree is suggestive of the substantial amount of information you have contained in the cranium.

Well, to make a long story short, I culled together a resume, I met with the Dean of this small college in Northeast Missouri, and in as much time as it takes to tell it, I was an Adjunct Instructor.

And on a particular day in August, when the sun was not as brutal as it had been all summer, and with the hope that soon it would rain, I entered a classroom and faced my first classroom.

There is a kind of terror that comes with the moment when you realize that you don't know everything.  And that there are some things you cannot fake.  And sometimes, it's best to tell the truth.

So, I made it clear that I was new to the front of the classroom, and while they were getting something from me, I was going to get something from them, as well.

It worked reasonably well.  But it took me two more years before I actually started to feel comfortable in front of a classroom.  And another year after that to truly feel worthy of the assignment.

I've given my current profession five years.  It will be five years on Sunday.  Half of what I gave my initial teaching assignment.  And while I get by, and keep ahead of the seemingly endless wave of crap that reaches the shore every day, I don't feel comfortable in my own shoes.  Yet.

But I keep trying, because it's all you have, sometimes.

Of course......if another teaching position comes along......I'd be on it like a penguin on a herring.