SCHOOL VOLUNTEER OF THE YAR

SCHOOL VOLUNTEER OF THE YAR

In the fall of 2016, we took an extensive road trip in our 2003 Volkswagen Camper. We drove out to the southern Rockies, lingered around an astonishing landscape we’d only seen pictures of. Our return home took us to north Florida before we headed back up the coast to Maine. We’d made some friends here on the island many years earlier when a couple of teachers from Georgia bought a vacation home here on the island. They each taught at Paideia, a private K-12 independent school located in the Druid Hills of Georgia. We arrived there during the day as classes were being taught and were invited to sit in on whichever of those we chose. We did and visited classes being taught by each of them. In each case kids were fully engaged, attentive and often mesmerized. In his class I watched several students sitting cross-legged on the floor while Peter sat in their midst holding and ascribing function to a whale harpoon. The classroom was a wonderland of instruction and imagination.

During our visit Peter took us to Fox Brothers Bar B Q in Atlanta, a delicious place, and during one or two subsequent visits we never failed to visit Fox Brothers.

A few years ago, my granddaughter called to report that she and my great grandson and another couple were scurrying north from their home in Lake Worth, Florida to escape an impending and very threatening hurricane. She promised to stay in touch as they traveled and ten hours later—the forecast of likely destruction had been so broad—she called to say they’d just checked into a motel in Atlanta. I suggested they all go downtown to Fox Brothers and enjoy dinner on me and then I called the restaurant to describe the situation and to provide a credit card number. I’d been there two or three times in a ten-year period; no one at the restaurant knew who I was nor was there any reason they should.

When my little group arrived, my granddaughter approached the maitre d and tentatively suggested she might be expected whereupon he leapt to his feet, clapped his hands, yelled for and got everyone’s attention and announced, “Hey, everyone! This is Phil Crossman’s granddaughter, whereupon, clearly having been rehearsed, everyone got to their feet and applauded wildly. The astonished group enjoyed a lovely meal and she called when they returned to the motel to report how astonished they all were that everyone seemed to know who I am. 

Today my teaching friends have ‘retired’ here to Vinalhaven but each volunteers in our fortunate island school and Peter has been named School Volunteer of the Year by the very discerning Maine State Principle’s Association.