Congrats!

Wanted to post a special shout out to my good friend Steve, who joined me for the first few days of this trip.

On Monday evening, the Scarsdale Board of Education had the wisdom and foresight to to grant him tenure at our alma mater, Scarsdale Middle School.

Inasmuch (isn't it strange that that's a word?) as the junior high years are undoubtedly the worst and most awkward of adolescence, there's a part of me that wishes I could go back to 8th grade, just so I could have Mr. Scharf for Social Studies.

For the past two and a half years, I've heard Steve speak passionately about teaching and trying his best to prepare his students -- his "kids" -- for the future. He's put in countless hours preparing lesson plans that were both entertaining and educational, and he's done it under the microscope and pressure of being a non-tenured teacher in a highly competitive and desirable school district. I could not be happier for him.

I'm already starting to research which lines from the final scene of Mr. Holland's Opus I'm going to plagiarize for his retirement dinner sometime in the 2040s... But one that I'll cherry-pick right now is from an earlier scene in the movie, when Principal Jacobs is lecturing Mr. Holland, then relatively new to the job, about a teacher's role:

"A teacher has two jobs; fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, give those minds a compass so that knowledge doesn't go to waste."

I have no doubt that my friend Steve will handle both those tasks with aplomb.

Congrats, buddy. You deserve it.