For the most part, I tend to share TGOTS’s distaste for Pink Floyd, despite the fact that my fella has tried to school me in the finer points of their less-popular work. Akin to her summer-camp memories, my Floyd memories all take place on the field hockey bus (now that I think about it, a friend of ours was in both places … perhaps it was all her doing). I don’t think there was a single away game whose return trip did not involve our whole team belting out “Comfortably Numb.” Yay for camaraderie and public singing. But I was rarely, at that age, either comfortable or numb. And so I had issues.

But this morning, when I heard Roger et al telling me how they don’t need no education, I suddenly flashed back on a different high school memory. It involves our wonderful, inspiring, dare I say handsome math teacher, Mr. F*. One day, he diverged from instructing us on tangents and cosigns (cosines? there are reasons I ended up majoring in English) to tell us, gravely, that Pink Floyd was in fact endorsing the importance of education with that lyric. With their clever use of the double negative! He went on to carefully parse the line, explaining his interpretation. So you see, kids, education is really important.

This would have been horribly, horribly painful coming from any number of other teachers of that era. And it probably was painful to many of the students that day, if they were even listening. But for me, it was dreamy — and apparently memorable. First of all: grammar in a math class! Any break from numbers is OK by me. But mostly, I suppose, it was that anything he said was to be admired, pondered, reflected upon. He was the sort of teacher you should write a grateful letter to years later, for helping to shape your life and so on. Pretty sure TGOTS and I say that at least once a year, but I don’ t know if either of us has ever sat down and written that note.

*Not that Mr. F.

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