Andrew

      Last year, I did not have a full teaching roster, so I was assigned a miscellany of other duties.  One of the more challenging and at times, daunting duties was  picking up Andrew in the mornings and then later driving him to his vocational internship.  The mornings were mostly fine and we’d often stop in Dunkin Donuts to pick up some breakfast; of course, we were always on time and brought donuts for everyone!  The drive to the internship always turned out to be more of an adventure.  We had to take the expressway and then hop onto 476… Andrew would often encourage me to pass whomever was in front of us.  During this time, I did have a pretty nasty Challenger with a 5.7 Hemi with a 6 speed manual transmission.  Andrew was enamored with this beast of a car and often inundated me with questions about it:

-How fast does it go, John?

-Do you race, John?

-How much can you get for this, John?

-And then, of course, there was the old “Why can’t I drive, John?”

     During these trips I got to know Andrew pretty well; sometimes he would tell me about his challenges at the residence he was staying at; or he would recap the big fight he had with his mom’s boyfriend and describe how he knocked him out and threw him down the steps.  Once or twice, he shared his feelings with me about his absentee father.  He expressed his dislike for him and would ask, “John, what kind of dad doesn’t want to see their own kid”.  I felt badly for Andrew and assured him that whatever the reason might be, that it was not his fault and he deserved better.  And I still believe this today.