Teacher to Teacher

It's been awhile since I posted, eh? I'm teaching two three-hour classes in summer school, taking the most intensive grad class yet, working on the grad portfolio, taking home buying classes and looking for work for the fall. In summary - I'm owned.

Oh, right, band practice. It ran late tonight, and my motorcycle is still dead, so I'm waiting for the 52 to come. After a few minutes I get restless and start walking south in the bike lane, looking back for the bus. A few blocks into it, I pass three guys who say something to me, and when I keep walking they start jawing about me ignoring them. The next time I look back for the bus, I see they've turned around and are following me. I'm in the street, and pretty sure they won't do anything, but still aware that there's a reason they turned around. Suddenly a truck pulls up and a guy in his 50s says "hey man, I'm not trying to hustle you or nothin', but I was dropping a friend off and heard those kids yelling at you. When I turned around, I saw they were following you and took their shirts off. Lemme give you a ride to a bus stop further down."

For a millisecond the thoughts of not getting in cars with strangers registered, but without pause, I opened the door and hopped in. We started talking about the situation and I mentioned it being summer and kids being bored without school, and he tells me that he's a high school teacher at Coolidge. Wow. I'm not sure if it takes a teacher to pick up a stranger that you think will get jumped, or if a teacher puts off some sort of vibe that they care that makes you not think twice about trusting them, hell, I don't know what to think - for all I know, those kids were just bored and wanted to follow me for something to do. Either way, I'm really glad that someone was aware of what was going on, made the effort to help a stranger out, and got me somewhere far away.

Turns out we have mutual friends in the teaching world. Coincidence? maybe....