When I was in first grade at St. Barnabas School in Northfield, Ohio, Sister Marie Maristella, gave us a homework assignment.

Typically, I hadn’t done it.

I was already in bed when Mom asked, “Did you have homework?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know; I forgot.”

“What was it?”

“I’m supposed to draw a picture of what I want to be when I grow up.”

Mom, exasperated, made me get out of bed. She marched me to the kitchen table, handed me a blank sheet of paper and a box of worn-down Crayolas.

“So what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about a doctor?”

“No.”

“Dentist?”

“Yuck.”

“What about a J.C. Penney manager like Dad?”

“Clothes are boring.”

“Teacher?”

“I can’t be a teacher!”

“Why not?”

“I’m a boy.”

“So?”

“Boys can’t be teachers.”

“Yes, they can.”

My sister Joanie, a fifth grader who never got anything but A's, was enjoying my interrogation. “My teacher is a man!” she announced.

“What?!”

Turns out that there were three male teachers at St. Barnabas. But in my first-grade bubble, I had never noticed any of them. I’d only seen women in the classroom. When Joanie and my eighth-grade sister, Jackie, played school, they took turns being the teacher. I was always their student.

“Okay, I’ll be a teacher,” I decided.

I drew a picture of what I envisioned an adult me would look like, standing in front of a blackboard, holding a pointer. At the bottom of the drawing I wrote, “Man Teacher.”

Then mom made me go back to bed.

Not long after that, my father told me that you could get paid—a lot—to play football. Same with baseball and basketball. I decided to put the teacher thing on hold. I’d play all three.

It wasn’t until I was 15, sitting courtside at a Detroit Pistons game, that it hit me. I’d never be good enough to get paid to play sports.

So I became a man teacher.

__________

Today, I live with my wife, Norma (also a teacher), in our Southern California house filled with books and surrounded by family. My daughter, Kyrra, owns a dance studio. My daughter Kylene teaches first grade. Two granddaughters, Coale and Dwyn, and grandson Kane call me “Gaddy.”

It’s the best.