Mr. Joel Brunsvold and his group of rambunctious 5th graders
This is my first time posting to the Memoir Monday initiative by 
Mr Brunsvold was an exemplary teacher and shepherded his class around like the Pied Piper. Most of the class loved him dearly and those that didn't, at the very least respected him for his thorough attentions. We all flourished in his class.
Back then there were no fences around schools and from the first grade to the sixth, I walked to school through the playground, across the ravine and home for lunch, then walked back for the afternoon session.
One day when I came back from lunch I was talking with a group of kids and one boy asked me how the plane was coming. My father had been a carpenter all his life and had been building a 3 seater Cavalier airplane in our garage. Mr. Brunsvold overheard the conversation and came to ask some questions. He ended up asking if it were possible for the class to come to the house on a sort of field trip to see the plane. I had to clear it with my folks, then he made arrangements with the prinicpal and one day we all marched like little ducks to my house to see the airplane.
He always had fun, off-the-cuff stuff for us to do and learn from. It was my very favorite year of my entire schooling. Later in life he became big in the Illinois state legislature, and I often wondered why he stayed so long as an elementary school teacher when his brilliance was so evident, even to a 5th grader. He has passed, of course, and I still think of him and offer up thanks that he was my teacher at such a vulnerable time in my life. He is a big part of my unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
I stand in front of Mr. Brunsvold in this picture rocking my signature black bob lol.