During a business trip to a mountainous district, I met an old man with white hair and beard, a slightly hunched gait but still agile, his skin still rosy and shiny, especially his eyes shining with intelligence and clarity. Being introduced by his comrades in the local district, I recognized him immediately, especially when he invited us into his house - 60 years later, his voice has not changed.
He was an excellent teacher, my teacher during my secondary school years (1965-1969). To be more precise, he did not teach directly, during those years he was the principal, but he directly participated in training and nurturing the school's excellent math team. When he held out his hand for me to hold, I clearly felt the warmth, love and affection spread throughout my body, and from there, many memories flooded back into a river of memories.
I don't remember exactly when he came to teach in my hometown, but when I entered secondary school (now junior high school), he was already the principal. He became the principal when he was very young, 24-25 years old, and he had not yet started a family. My classmates and my older brothers and sisters were afraid of him, very afraid of him, but everyone respected him. He was very strict but he was very good at Math. In the eyes of us, the students on the team, he was an idol.
During the years of rationing, hunger and starvation, and not enough salary to eat, the teacher still spent money to buy materials, especially to subscribe to the magazine “TOAN HOC TUOI TRE” to have more materials and knowledge to teach us. At that time, it was a rationing period, so there were not many materials and in the whole district, there were probably only one or two teachers who subscribed to TOAN HOC TUOI TRE materials. For us, those were distant things, only available to noble people like him.
Thinking back to the memories with my teacher during my secondary school years, my house was 2.5 km from school but due to the lack of classrooms, class 5A had classes in the morning; 5B had classes in the afternoon so our group of gifted math students in grade 5 had to take extra classes at night. I had a habit that was not bad but not good either, which was not sleeping overnight in a strange place. So after every evening extra class (about 10 nights), I carried a lantern and walked home even though I was the only one whose house was the furthest away.
In the afternoon, we studied, and after we finished studying, we stayed to study that evening. The teacher loved his students and cooked dinner for us to eat together. During difficult times, the teacher had to eat rice mixed with potatoes, but whenever I stayed, the teacher would roast potatoes outside so I wouldn't have to eat rice mixed with potatoes.
Many days, my teacher tried to persuade me to stay because I walked home late, but I refused. One day, the wind suddenly blew up and signaled a heavy rain, the sky was pitch black, and at 9:30 my teacher dismissed me early. When I was about to leave, he called me back and took out his bike, telling me to get on his bike and take me home. I was both happy and embarrassed, but the rain was coming.
The teacher and student rode home on the teacher's old motorbike, when suddenly the motorbike jumped and the teacher's sandals flew off his feet. The teacher and student stopped and groped around for their sandals (there were no flashlights like today). They searched for a long time and finally found them. Because the motorbike climbed over a big rock, the sandals flew quite far.
There are many stories about the teacher's strictness. One day before class, the teacher ran around the classrooms and saw two students in the class above mine drawing on the wall with bricks. The teacher came, first pinched their ears until they were red, then asked the two students to clean the area where they had drawn after class. The teacher only said that, but at that time, we were very strict students. After class, the two students had to borrow a broom, a rag, and a bucket of water to clean the painted wall. We still went to school with the students, we loved them and wanted them to go home together, so we cleaned the walls and the classroom together.
While we were wiping, the teacher said, “What? Me! (I said “me” but very affectionately) I didn’t punish you guys, only those who drew had to brush.” We stood there scratching our heads, afraid that the teacher would punish us further. But no, the teacher smiled and said, “That’s it, go down to my room!” As students, it was rare to go down to the teacher’s room, especially when it was the principal. We looked at each other, worried, wondering what else he would punish us with. But we still had to go down. When we got down to the teacher’s room, the teacher had a kettle of water mixed with sugar and a pack of lemon candies, enough for each of us to have two. The teacher told us to eat, we were hungry at noon, and next time, you guys can’t draw anymore!
Back to today's meeting, the teacher invited me to drink some water. I woke up to reality, the cup of fresh tea from the garden was hot and strong. The teacher looked at my face and slowly said: "You probably want to ask how I was in the following years?" Then he told me: After we were in high school, I joined the army and came after the liberation of the South. In 1976, I returned as a student at the University of Education I, and the school arranged for me to go to Lomolosov University. But at that time, I switched to the Physics department. After graduating, I went back to the teacher training school and that's when I met this girl who was a lecturer at the school, 14 years younger than me. They started a family and had a younger sister (now working at the Institute of Mathematics).
When she retired, she returned to her hometown (leaving a 30m2 room for me) and built this property. With a small amount of capital, she went to the local middle school to build a bookshelf named after her - NGOC TAM Bookshelf and bought some books for the children to study and read. The emotion and admiration were clearly visible on the faces of the brothers who came with me. Due to the geographical distance and time, I did not know about the teacher, now meeting him again at the age of over 80, I am happy for him to have a bookshelf named after him. Retired teachers still continue their career as teachers.
Goodbye teacher, we left, the teacher tearfully said: “Someone called my job as ferryman but I don’t think so, my job is SOWING SEEDS and it is the success of you guys today. I am so proud that the ferryman has customers to remember like me”. The teacher and students reluctantly said goodbye./.
Le Dung
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