English Teachers – by Shannon E. Ayala
Retired English teachers, Laura and Jim Trotta, have been married since 1987 and taught at Mount Vernon High School for more than 20 years.
J: At the time.
L: Yep, to our cute, little, new wife.
J: Yea.
L: Who’s a much better cook than I am.J: So is our cat.
L: So is our cat. Right, well anyway. And you were married and I had a boyfriend so I wasn’t that interested in you.
J: I swept you off your feet.
L: Right, you swept me off my feet….one day we were walking and it was real windy and the wind was very dry and dusty. So I said (laughs) you don’t remember?
J: I don’t remember.
L: So I said, let’s get a beer.
J: Oh we went to the Japanese place, yea.
L: Yea and then once we were both drunk then we were in love.
J: That’s how we stay in love.
L: Not exactly. No it was nice actually because we had some English books with us and we were talking about different authors and you know, I don’t know, we had a lot in common.
…We were willing to go through some bad stuff and even you know I guess it was hurtful but we wanted to be together so. Now we are and we have no idea why. (laughs) Why did we work so hard at that?
J: We have so many cats.
L: Yea.
J: Somebody has to feed them.
L:So I moved back down from Westchester and got the job at Mount Vernon High School, where I met Jimmy, in 1979 and just stayed at Mount Vernon High School for 25 years, and, teaching there is both really difficult and really wonderful.
…There was one time that a kid had a Stalletto knife – is that what it’s called a Staletto knife? – and he was going to poke your eye out?
J: That was a girl.
L: Oh that was girl! Please! Pardon me! Oh my God. He was going after her boyfriend? He had cheated.
J: I had her, trying to get the knife away from her.
L: Lord help me!
J: That wasn’t even the time when I broke up a fight and the principal bought me a new shirt.
L: Bought you a new shirt (laughing).
J: Because I had blood all over it.
L: Oh my God. It’s horrible talking about this. No really it makes you so nervous. Like I said, some of our classes were great but oh my goodness, the atmosphere.
J: One of my students told me, she saw I had blood on my shirt…
L: Oh what did she tell you?! I know!
J: ‘Whenever that happens to my brother, my mother, cleans it with milk.
L: She soaks it in milk overnight. It comes right out. (Laughs) Yea you pick up a lot of good pointers. (Laughs). Yes. It’s a very interesting school It’s a tremendously interesting school. We did have a lot of lockdowns. A lot of riots. … Pardon me for laughing. I dont’ think this is funny. It makes me a nervous wreck! You’re trying to do your job. You’re with 30 young kids in a room, that you adore. And then they say lock your doors, there’s a boy running through the halls with an axe! (Laughs)
J: Without a shirt.
L: Without a shirt! Yes, like they need to add that detail so you can identify him! Oh! So opposed to the other one with the shirt. (Laughs) Oh my God. Yea, some days it was not too easy to get your job done.
J: So you go back to teaching, nouns.
L: It was horrible. Yea, let’s just ignore that students. We’re going to be here for a little while, so let’s just go back to reading Raisin in the Sun.
J: So, tell us about some of your favorite students.
L: Some of my favorite students? Oh please, this gets a little bit sad actually though. Because you know who I’m going to say.
J: Who?
L: Michael.
Ah, Mitchell and Michael.
…they started coming to my classroom to eat. And they actually asked me, can we bring you lunch one day. What would you like? And I told them coffee and an apple. That’s all I want, just coffee and an apple. They brought it to me every day!
J: That’s hilarious, coffee and an apple.
L: I don’t know. What did you eat?
J: I had a sandwich.
L: You, never had a sandwich.
J: I, brought a sandwich every day.
L: You did?
L: They were with me in ninth grade and tenth grade, and then had you in twelfth grade, and even when they graduated we kept in touch with them, went on vacation with them, one month before the World Trade Center attack and uh, Michael was in there, and died that day. We didn’t even know he worked in the World Trade Center.
…And we had gone away on vacation with them up to Lake George, exactly one month before and we had such a great time. Michael was working in finance and he was making all this money and he bought a boat and he took us all up to Lake George and he took us out on his boat. And no teachers, we think probably a lot of teachers get to do that but it was just wonderful, you never expect that you’re going to grow friendships like that when your a teacher. You think you’re just going to do a job.