Thank you Mr. Bea

After a couple of weeks, I was back out on the street.  Biking to Golfland, stealing toys, and eating hot dogs and cookies for dinner.  I learned a few more tricks before going back into the shelter.  I met this kid Mai.  He was also a regular at the arcades, so naturally we became friends.  He was an older kid,.  Then again to a ten year old, fourteen is old.  With his age came wisdom and knowledge, the crafty type.  He taught me how to fish.  With the right length of fishing line and strong, thin tape, (or a drill if you can get your hands on one) you can drop your quarter or token into the coin slot, and slide it down until it hits a thin metal tab.  That tab indicates that you've paid and that you get the credit to play.  Pull it back up before it goes past a certain point, or your bait is lost.  Drop it back down again and you've now successfully fished.  Off of $.25, you could play a game with two players and beat it, something that could take $5.00 for a noob.  (If any kids are reading this, well, doesn't really matter since Xbox and PS3 provide the best gaming experience now, but still, I do not condone or endorse this type of thing.  Anymore.  And yeah, I'm a huge video game nerd.)

In addition to my young life of petty crime, I also started cutting school and, from a dare, I spray painted the school walls.  To top it off, I strolled around with a keychain of a topless blonde that I bought at a shady convenience store.  One day, I was caught cutting school and the female officer in charge of transporting me back asked me about it.
Does your mom allow you to have this?
Yes, I say as I think of the hilarity of my mom having authority over me.  I make up something about her being cool with it, and Mrs. Officer mutters something about bad parenting.  Of course, nobody was able to get a hold of my mom, so I never got into any trouble.   I was en route to becoming a bad kid, until a teacher finally stepped in.

My fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bea must have noticed something was amiss.  The snitches get stitches rule was apparently not in effect since everyone knew I spray painted the school.    After I was brought back by the keychain-hating cop, he intervened.  He asked me about my home life, which I immediately deflected.  He told me he knew about my artwork on the walls, the unexcused absences, and the cigarette smoking.  The latter was a surprise to me, since I didn't smoke, but rumours start and spread pretty quickly.  I bet it originated from the same brat who ratted on me.  I tried to tell the truth and deny it, but with my reputation it was impossible to shake the new label.  However, I did welcome his help.  We were doing a class project about making fun commercials, and I was having trouble creating mine.  I remember the other kids' elaborate projects, from make believe hotels to savvy infomercials for phony inventions.  I was dwarfed by their creativity, but luckily Mr. Bea was my assistant actor.  My grand idea was pulled from a Juicy Fruit commercial.  Add in some of my odd prepubescent humor and the product became Juicy Poop.  If you know the jingle, you'll see the similarities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ92qqzutcE   

Take a sniff.  (Actors sniff fingers) Pull it ouuuuut.  (Actors retrieve Juicy Poop from rear) The taste is gonna move ya.  It's gonna move ya when you pop it in your mooooouuuth.  Juicy Poop.  It's gonna move ya.  The juice is soft.  It gets right to ya.

>Cut to scene where I give thumbs up with my Juicy Poop, like a Mentos.<    
That was the jingle I sang with Mr. Bea to my classmates for my presentation.  It wasn't the best in the class, but I remember thinking I did okay and that I was grateful for the help.

That wasn't the only time he helped me.  The entire fifth grade class was going to a science camp called Walden West.  Apparently we were a "Stanford Accelerated School" which comes with certain perks. All of the kids would spend an entire week up in the cabins in some woods and learn about tarantulas and banana slugs.  We were told they even had a song about the latter.
But it wasn't free.  I was made aware of this trip sometime in January, so there were fundraisers you could participate in to raise money for yourself.  Now that I look at it, it seems like a way to make money off of young aspiring faces.  Anyhow, I was given a box of 30 generic Hershey-looking chocolates.  I sold about four and ate the rest.  When the time came to pay up, I was already in the process of moving to a foster family, so they never brought it up.  I did have bigger things to worry about though.  Somehow the whole school knew that I was at the shelter again, awaiting to be put into my first foster home.  Mr. Bea and a few of the faculty members must have paid for my trip, because I was notified that I would be going.  Despite the situation at the time, I felt elated.  It was a like a going away gift.  It would be the last time I would enjoy the freedom I was accustomed to.

It's been twenty years since, and I still am grateful for having such a great teacher.  You know how security questions sometimes ask who your favorite teacher is?  I always put Mr. Bea.  I recently reached out to him on LinkedIn and thanked him for making an impact on my life.  I believe that good teachers deserve all the praise that their paychecks don't sing.  So take some time and thank a teacher in your life.  I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

PS - As usual, names have been changed or omitted to protect their privacy.