Teaching History Matters

On December 10, 2019, I surpassed 500,000 blog visits on TeachingHistoryMatters.com. Thank you for visiting; maybe you were the one who tripped the milestone.

I’ve been trying to think of what to write for this occasion, and set aside the time to get it done. (Did you know that every new original post takes me at least 2 days to write, edit, and proof?) Should I do a ‘greatest hits’ post, highlighting my most popular reads? A twelve-year retrospective of this journey I have been on which has carried me from mid-career teacher to published author, sought-out speaker, and historical commentator? Of the people who have crossed my path here and graced my life but who have now passed on?

Well, I suppose I can’t just let it pass.

I started this blog with a Sept 2007 entry after our very first soldiers-survivors reunion at the high school where  I had a 30-year career. Now I’m retired; my school honored me with a commencement address and induction into their honored graduates’ alumni, but sometimes I wonder if it’s all moving so fast that it’s all going to be lost in the current of time.

We did something important. We showed that teaching history does matter. And I want that to be remembered, because it is lazy to let it slip away, and as a nation we are complicit to an alarming extent.

So I write, first this blog, now my books. Now, some reviewers of the book around the events that began this blog took me to task for ‘Inserting Himself into the Narrative.’ Well, I am part of the narrative now. Get off my lawn and write your own damned book. That one nearly killed me on a few levels. Good luck on yours.

I didn’t write it as an exercise in self-promo; rather, one of the threads in it was more an ongoing dialogue with myself in attempting to come to grips with my mortal place in this universe, my sojourn on this earth, so to speak. And I literally did not figure it out until the last 20 pages of a 500-page odyssey. I’m no longer an observantly religious guy in the traditional sense, but the full weight of revelation hit me in the City of God, Jerusalem. Go figure.

This year I lost one of my first World War II interviewees, Art LaPorte. He was a wiry, tough, battle-scarred 17-year-old boy-Marine veteran of Iwo Jima and Korea. He kept diaries and drawings of his time on Iwo and wrote poetry and narratives about his experiences. I remember lugging an early version of a video camera and my 3-year-old daughter to his kitchen table; the interview went on for so long that I think I remember I neglected my fatherly duties and she had a minor ‘accident’ off camera. Almost 2 decades later, he came out to my first book signings and sat with me; he was happy to be in the book in a big way. When he died in August his family mentioned me in his obituary. I found out after the fact, I missed his wake and service. At the time I was totally absorbed with helping another history friend conduct his life’s work shortly after being diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I felt bad about that, and that I have not brought Art up until now, but maybe it’s all part of whatever review this post is turning out to be. So long, Art.

I feel also super compelled to write a 75^th anniversary post about the Battle of the Bulge, which unfolded tomorrow morning about this time. I have a lot of profound things to say, some of which I’ve definitely said before in blog posts here and in my new book, and probably my next one. But it’s 5:45 AM and I have to leave to do another book fair type show today, getting the word out on the street again that teaching history matters. It reminds me of my project 10 years ago, before any books, where on this blog I began a 65^th anniversary tour of 1945 event posts entitled, ‘The Year of the Liberator’. You can look those up in the search bar, but I will probably be re-editing and re-introducing in 2020 if I have the time. I have half a dozen new book ideas to work on and I am looking to keep spreading the word on a national level with the documentary on the train. It’s a cliché that you can get even more busy with work in retirement, but for me it’s true. I still can’t believe that I knocked out my first 2 books while I was still a full-time teacher. How the hell did I pull that off? Well, any author knows the personal sacrifices; father and husband of the year I have not been awarded yet. Add full time job and responsibility to students to the pile! And I had my own kids in class and/or was their National Honor Society advisor, so I’m kinda grateful for that; at least we had that time together during those crazy days. Thank goodness for my wife…

The 75^th anniversary of the Bulge also reminds me of the recent passing of Francis Currey, MOH. Frank was the sole surviving WWII MOH recipient in all of New York and New England, a nineteen year old replacement soldier looking to get the hell out of his hometown who became the hero of December 21, 1945 in a horrible place called Malmedy, and who was told by none other than the Supreme Allied Commander that his actions there that day may have shortened the war in Europe by 6 weeks. I shamefully lost touch with Frank over the last few years, but shared a place at the head table with him at many a 30^th Infantry Division Veterans of World War II reunion; Frank donned his Medal of Honor, Frank Towers wore his Legion d’Honneur, and I felt no shame pinning on my national medal for American history education. I was honored by these heroes, to be in their presence, to be asked to speak to their deeds, not for their benefit, but for the betterment of humanity. Now they are gone.

I lost my 95-year-old friend Walter Gantz a few weeks later just before Thanksgiving, so suddenly it knocked the wind out of my sails for a time, that is for sure. He was the 95-year-old medic who I re-united with the children he nursed back to health after the horrors of the Holocaust, including Judah Samet, train survivor and Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting survivor. Walter cried. And he was funny, so kind, gentle; his family told me that former student athletes of his coaching drove hundreds of miles to be at his funeral. And what do you say when they tell you that a copy of A Train Near Magdeburg was placed in his casket, to be with him for eternity?

I guess this brings me full circle. While working on the audio version of that book (supposedly out in a week, but don’t hold your breath), I was struck again by listening to the chapter where I try to reconcile my place in the universe with the memory of the passings of Frank Towers, George Gross and my first ‘train interviewee’, Carrol Walsh, seven years ago this coming week, and the beautiful survivors that I grew to know and love as well. So right now, it brings me back to the beginning again. I’m on the downhill side of my fifties now; my former 3-year-old is 25 soon. I’ve lost students, high school friends, parents, and all the friends mentioned above. So, it makes one wonder, rambling on here; half a million blog reads over 12 years is really nothing; I’m sure some ‘influencers’ get that in a few days or a week.

Somedays it feels like it is over, but as I have learned, it’s never over, is it?

“Okay, boomer.”  But yeah, it really is okay.

I’ll leave you with an accompanying news article that still hangs on the door in my woodworking shop, the event that kicked off this blog and miracle upon miracle after September 14, 2007.