Teacher Appreciation Week #1

It is Teacher Appreciation week. I thought I would take the next 5 entries to recognize a few of the people who I was lucky enough to have as teachers over my life.

In order to attend the high school I wanted to attend I needed to take Latin. (it’s a long story) Luckily the Latin teacher at Tuscola Senior High was the one and only Michael Lodico. My Latin name was TITUS. I was in class with Octavia and others. If Mr. Lodico sees me today, some 25 years later, he still calls me Titus. He’s original to say the least.

Mr. Lodico made a 2000 year old, dead language interesting and fun. He was, and I don't think he would disagree, a little bit goofy and completely without pretense. As much as any teacher I ever had he seemed comfortable in his own skin. Students responded to him because of this. The roughest most cynical students would listen to Mr. Lodico  for no other reason than to be entertained. So, if he got you listening he got you learning.

The senior Latin students made a bulletin board for his classroom my sophomore year. It was a giant "Latin Monopoly" board and everything was in Latin. Not surprisingly everything from MATEL didn’t translate particularly well into Latin. “FREE PARKING” was one of those squares. Sadly I can’t remember the exact word they used but loosely translated it meant “ORGY”. Now that is funny especially to a 15 year old.

The fact that he was genuine and unafraid to be a little nutty made even the crabbiest kids realize he was, if nothing else, authentic. And that ain’t nothing!

I was lucky enough to have Mr. Lodico for senior English as well. He taught me how to write an effective essay and for that alone I probably owe him my college degree.

Mr. Lodico, for the leaning and the laughs and sheer energy you brought to class Titus says THANKS!