A Postscript: Thank You, Brenda Riggs

In the late 1980’s I was transferred to Sparrows Point Middle School and assigned to a classroom next door to a high school classmate of mine named Brenda Riggs. I have Brenda to thank for several things including almost weekly practical joke battles and general foolishness that can make a job seem like play, and I probably did thank her for allowing me the opportunity to transform into Dickensian bad-boy, Bill Sikes in one of her stage productions, but none of that compares to what she did for me without even knowing she did it. She introduced me to Jim Canavan.

Jim, 1992

Jim was Brenda’s student teacher or Brenda was Jim’s cooperating teacher, but either way one thing was for certain: Jim’s personality could not have been more mismatched than it was with Brenda’s. I’m not quite sure, but I think the two of them were the original source of the expression “oil and water.” Six months later I was the department chair, and Brenda had moved on. When the principal asked me if I could recommend anyone to take her spot, I did not hesitate. We found him working at a sports camp in Maine, and with the help of the BCPS Human Resources he joined us full time. To celebrate, off to Europe he went.

Jim and Ev in den Haag (2012)

I am convinced that most people confuse destiny with dumb luck. Jim doesn’t make that mistake. When he knocked on the door of a fellow camp counselor who had invited him to the Netherlands, Jim met the woman who would change his life. As Eveline pieced together the story, she realized that although her brother had invited Jim to visit, he was on holiday in Italy. She became Jim’s tour guide. The rest, as they say, is history.

During the next two years Jim and I worked together, and Eveline moved to America to be with him. When I was promoted to Catonsville High School as an administrator, Jim and Ev began their career in international schools. Although they returned to Maryland long enough for Ev to get her teaching certificate (and for Jim and me to work together once again), their experiences overseas would lead them to Brazil, Venezuela, Egypt, Cambodia, and the Netherlands.

1992 (w Paul, Chris, Jesse)

If you ask Jim to describe our friendship, I know what he would say because I would say the same things. If you asked him what memories he would share, I guarantee he would tell you about tennis racquets, and canoes, and soccer balls, and beer glasses. He would include our friends Paul Muller and Chris Battaglia, and he would be sure to thank the people like Don Mohler and Pat Brown who gave him priceless opportunities in Maryland schools. He would tell about trips to New York including the time Paul, Don, Jim, and I asked a gas station operator for directions to Yankee Stadium. He looked over the four of us and instead of answering the question said, “Well, the big one will probably be all right and the little guy can run away…” (On that same trip a soda vendor grew tired of getting hit by ice being thrown at her. She slammed down her tray of drinks on the rail behind me and screamed, “I will fuck you up!” I ducked, covered my head, and whispered to Don asking if he thought she meant me.)

w/ Don and Paul in Yankee Stadium

Jim would describe several canoe trips on the upper Potomac. He might even remember the evening when bike riders using the C&O canal rode by us as we drew water from a well with a hand pump. We still laugh at the notion of one rider saying to the other, “Honest to God! The little one was washing the big one’s back!”

And there’s no doubt that Jim would talk about the canoe trip when Paulie joined us as we chaperoned fifteen high school soccer players. To this day Jim swears that the success they enjoyed on the pitch came from three days on the river. Always trailing the flotilla, on one occasion when we rounded a bend in the river we found their six canoes unattended on the riverbank while they explored one of the summer cottages along the river. Using their poor judgment as a teachable moment, we took all of their paddles and left them behind. Do not ask me how fifteen boys without paddles can catch three grown men with paddles, but they did. They swamped us.

Canoe camping on the Potomac

He might tell you about a day spent together walking through Cambodia’s Killing Fields, but he’s more likely to recount an evening at the Zeppelin Bar in Phnom Penh depleting their supply of Jack Daniels while unsuccessfully attempting to request something that old-school DJ didn’t have on vinyl! Maybe he would talk about several memorable evenings in Amsterdam, especially one when he and I joined hundreds of locals and tourists alike walking on the frozen canals.

If he talked long enough he might even describe an ineffably difficult conversation we had the first time we saw each other after his daughter, Julia died.

I wonder if he remembers a day soon after Eveline arrived in the USA when we all attended a basketball game at Patapsco High School. It became clear that uniquely American cultural mainstays such as drive-thru windows and supermarkets the sizes of small nations were entirely new to her. It was no wonder and just a little funny that as we sat and watched the action on the floor, Eveline wanted to know the purpose of the girls who were all dressed alike sitting courtside while occasionally standing and performing in unison. (Come to think of it, in my three years in Europe, I don’t remember seeing a cheerleader.)

Ev and Gwaz waiting for Sinterklaus

With Jim in Amsterdam

It’s easy to see why Jim loves Eveline. Heck, Gwaz and I love Eveline. Everybody loves Eveline. She was as patient with the weekly ping-pong tournaments at their house in Loch Raven as she was trying to help me countless times on the phone in Holland trying to buy groceries or turn on the washing machine or any other thing that confounded the heck out of me. For the last nine months it was my privilege to work just down the hall from her at ISA.  We even shared the weekly battle to get Feranmi to Dutch class on time! (By the way, he won.)

Just last summer as I sat in the kitchen of Jim and Eveline’s house at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, Ev asked me if I would ever consider returning to ISA. I was adamant. Although I treasured my two previous tours in Holland, my overseas service was complete. Uhhh…yeah…about that…I have learned never to say never (again).

Twenty-six years down the road, saying “Thank you” to Jim and Eveline is getting repetitious. Eveline just smiles and says, “You’re welcome.” Jim always says, “Who loves you?”

I cannot count all the ways the two of them have made my life better, but I know one thing for sure: I need to tell Brenda Riggs something.