Mr. Ames sits at his desk. The same desk he’s been at for years and years, even with different students passing through each year. Does he know the impact of his teaching, the lives that he has changed? The rays of the sun rising in the east shine through the window each morning. His bald head glistens and shimmers in the sunlight. I remember that he always made classes enjoyable and meaningful. For the first time in my life, I would want to come to school each day, eager and excited to learn. I remember one day in particular; a large Coke bottle, a bag of sugar, and a scale stood on his desk. “How many of you know how much sugar is in Coke?” he asked the class. He put on his clear round glasses and raised the Coke bottle to his face, reading off the nutrition facts and exclaimed, “65 grams! Do you guys know what 65 grams of sugar looks like?” He took out a silver spoon and began shoveling sugar onto the scale. The numbers on the scale slowly started to creep up. By the time the scale read 65 grams, there was a mountain of sugar, almost as tall as the bottle itself. “That is how much sugar they put in that Coke bottle,” he said. I do not know why I remember this class in particular. Maybe it was because he always brought the real world into the classroom and taught us lessons that would become important to us in the future.
I remember he was especially interested in my passion for fly fishing. So much so that at the end of the year, I couldn’t resist but gift him a fly fishing rod. Maybe he still uses that fly rod I gave to him all those years ago. I imagine him standing in the amazing Madison River Valley in Montana.
The mountains, though in the distance, seem so close that you could touch them. The white flecks of snow, frozen on its peaks and the river winding through the valley, shimmering as it bounces off the gravel and carves its way into the banks. The faint whispering of endless water as it splashes and tumbles through the fields, and when the sun sets in the valley, its bright red glow still remains, hovering on top of the peaks lighting the sky on fire, chipped with stars, as if someone had run a purple paintbrush across the sky.
I imagine him standing there, the occasional whip of the fly line as he waves his rod back and forth. The line and the fly gently resting on the water before a large rainbow trout, vibrant with red and black spots, comes up and sips it off the surface. I imagine him standing there until it is dark; the shadows of the mountains still looming in the distance against a backdrop of glitter and a myriad of colors. Maybe he looks back to that 4th grade class he had in the distant past and smiles.