On my second day as a rookie English teacher at my alma mater, Stuyvesant High School, I walked down the fourth floor hallway on my way to class. Behind a thick column, lurking in the shadows, a kind looking man with an Irish brogue quietly summoned me. The man was Frank McCourt, Stuyvesant’s venerated creative writing teacher.
I was immediately smitten. Thus began the most rewarding mentorship and friendship that I’ve ever had. Two years later, I heeded his advice and “got out” to pursue my dream of a journalism career.
Even after I left teaching, we stayed close, and our lives continued to intersect. A few days after his first essay appeared in print, an excited Frank called me from a phone booth on East Ninth Street, near the pub. His voice sounded electric.
Frank clearly was a highly adored teacher but that wasn’t his ultimate dream—he really wanted to make it as a writer. But no path had yet opened for him, and he was in his late fifties. I recall one day the famous Jerzy Kosinski, author of Being There and The Painted Bird, came to speak at Stuyvesant, and after his remarks, Frank went up to him and plaintively asked: “How can I be a writer like you?” He told me a few times when we were teaching together that on nights and weekends he was trying to write a book about his impoverished childhood, but he “couldn’t get the sounds of the classroom” out of his ears.
I left Stuyvesant because I was offered a job as Editor of a new weekly newspaper covering the West Side of Manhattan. It was a great first journalism job, and I was only 24. Frank told me he was proud that I was chasing my dream.
About a year after I left teaching, Frank and I had one of our occasional dinners at the Lion’s Head restaurant on Christopher Street in Manhattan. It was a well-known journalist and author hang out. That night, we eyed revered columnist Pete Hamill across the bar.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
