Today, I was going through all the papers that I kept when teaching Math at NEO A&M.  Why I kept all that stuff I don't know.  Letters from students, etc.  And while reading over every paper and note before I discarded it, I found a note that one of my football (Calculus) students had written me.  He was struggling with exhaustion that fall with grueling practices that left him sleep deprived.

He wrote:  Now I lay me down to sleep,
                  This test is long and very deep.
                  If it should end before I wake,
                  Just give my arm a gentle shake.

At least he wasn't begging for mercy.  He just slept through class every day.  But he always came!!  I guess he thought he could absorb calculus in his sleep.

I answered him:  In life there are some things, it seems,
                           We need to do before we dream.
                           Next time please dream before you test,
                           Or you may fail.  I do not jest.

Teaching was so much fun.  I loved it.  But the students were what made it memorable.  I had between 150 and 200 students every semester depending on overload.  That would have been up to 6000 students.  Some of them I will never forget.  He is the only one I wrote a poem for.

He didn't make it in math.  But since NEO was nearly always #1 in the nation in football back during those years, maybe he made it to the pros.  A bunch of them did.  I could turn on the TV back then--for  pro games--and would always see someone I knew.   I can't help but wonder how those students made it in life.