The "A Reunion With A Former Student" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking out the family room window to see if our guests had arrived.  When the doorbell finally rang, I was taken back in time for the next few hours.  On April 8th of this year I posted a story about a former student by the name of Steve Graver.  

Steve Graver's 1969 Yearbook portraiture.

Steve was one of my first Industrial Arts students in the late 1960s.  He graduated in 1969 and as with most of my students, I lost track of him.  At the end of March of this year I got an email from him and memories of my first few years of teaching all returned to me.  Steve was in my Graphic Arts class at Manheim Township High School in Neffsville, Pennsylvania, a few miles north of Lancaster.  He somehow found my email address and wrote me a note.  He was living in California and was interested in finding out about his 50th year class reunion.  I stopped in the school office the following day after running the printing press for most of the morning and got the information which I sent to him that evening.  

Pat and Steve and their family.

Wasn't long before he told me his plans and our emails began on a regular basis.  He sent me a photo of he and his wife at the Jersey Shore as well as a family picture of he and his wife Pat and their 7 children.  After graduation from high school in 1969 he got a job at Intel Printing Company and eventually moved his family to California where he worked printing wine labels for Napa Valley wines bottles.  He devoted his entire working life to the printing trade.  Well, Steve made arrangements to attend his class reunion and told me they would stop for a visit.  After the doorbell rang I opened the front door and there stood Steve and Pat.  

Early photo of Pat at 925 Janet Ave.  Pat
is the young girl on the right of photo.

People change quite a bit in 50 years and I didn't recognize him until he said, "Mr. Woods."  I never forget a voice.  He introduced me to his wife as they walked into our foyer.  Carol joined us and we spent the next few hours reliving our lives with each other.  Steve grew up in the same neighborhood as my mom, dad, brother and I did.  He delivered our newspaper for a few years and even remembered a few of my early cars I owned while living on North Queen Street with my parents.  Being he was about five years younger than me, I never got to know him when we lived near each other.  

Photo of Carol and I with son Derek and baby girl Brynn.

Steve attended the nearby Catholic School until his parents decided to put him in public schools so he could experience "shop" classes.  Best move they could have made as it turned out.  Pat lived at 925 Janet Ave. in Grandview Heights for a year or so as her parents waited for a new house to be completed.  Just so happens Carol and I bought that same house at 925 Janet a year after we were married.  Small world as they say.  Back in April he shared with me a photo of Pat as a child in front of Janet Ave. and I sent one of Carol and I at the same location.  After a few hours of conversation we headed to a local restaurant for lunch.  Tough catching up on half a century of living, but we certainly tried to do so.  We spent the next hour at the restaurant talking as we ate our meal.  Time to leave and Steve insisted he pay the check, since he claimed I was responsible for him being successful in the printing business.  We returned to the house and bid farewell since he and Pat had to head back to their rental so they could get their luggage and head to Baltimore for their flight back to California.  Over the years I have met quite a few former students and find it interesting to see how my class may have helped them in their choice of career.  I had both my sons in my Grahphic Arts class and they too are in the printing trade, but after hearing Steve's story and his success as a printer, I realized I really did make the right choice of becoming a teacher.  

Steve (right) and myself visiting after 50 years.  As you
may notice, printing ink makes you lose your hair!

And, it was humbling to hear him tell me that I made a difference in his life.  It was another extra-ordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.