On Learning Latin

When i was in eighth grade, i had a choice between Home Ec/Art (i never did figure out what the Ec stood for) and Latin. My dad chose Latin. I love to bake and to sketch, and hate grammar, so you may imagine my dismay and resentment. On the first day of class we found the the original Latin teacher had dropped out last minute and instead we were going to be taught by a poor, innocent math teacher because she was able to speak Spanish (or at least, we were to assume so as she had spent some months in Mexico). Our textbooks were hand-me-downs from another school, and had scribbles throughout (some of them not very "nice" and we enjoyed shocking some of the more conservative teachers with them until they forced us to white it all out). While she laboured over dipthongs, i worked on my algebra homework and cogitated on various ways to talk my dad around. About a month in, we were informed that a new Latin teacher had been found, and hired. A couple of weeks later, we walked into class, and there was the Magister. No one would call him diminuitive, though he was not tall. He had come out of retirement to teach us, and had formerly taught not only Latin, but also English, Spanish, and French. Often he would forget and start speaking in the wrong language, but it made us all feel very cosmopolitan, so we didn't mind. His taste in dress was exquisite and his outfits were always perfectly coordinated - shoes, socks, vest, shirt, and tie. He traveled often, and could tell the most wondrous stories. And he had a most gorgeous tenor voice combined with a suavity of manner James Bond would envy. He was, to put it simply, a Gentleman. I can totally see him fighting a duel. I'm afraid we didn't learn much Latin. It was rather late for him to crack down on us and he hadn't been teaching in a while. However, we learned quite a lot of mythology that year, and Magister's stories were always instructive on some level. And when the fire alarm went off because the Home Ec teacher had left something in the oven, and i heard all her students moan about having to make accounts and all the busy work, i began to appreciate my father's choice. They were not, after all, learning anything i did not already know how to do, and somehow Magister was much more adept than the Home Ec teacher (also our Bible teacher) at capturing the imagination. I continued Latin until the tenth grade. Some days he would be very active, jumping all around and shouting at us. Other days he had a migraine, so he would sit holding his head with the lights off, and tell us to behave. Sometimes we did. Sometimes we would all go outside, or watch movies - Spartacus or The Oddysey. We started actually working at Latin, but i think we still learned much more about mythology, and English grammar, than Latin. We discussed many things in that class - Politics, Theology, Biology, Wrestling, Music, and even Knitting. One day we spent learning how to waltz, and the next we would argue about Ecclesiastes, and the next over whether his car was cranberry or purple. In discussions of the latter sort, or whenever he felt that we were being ridiculous, he would exclaim "When donkeys fly!" Further absurdity would drive him to adding "...with a rubber hose!" and in greatest extremity he would end with "...up your left nostril!" I loved that class. Thanks, Dad.