Monty Vierra:  

Life After graduating from Willow Glen (June, 1969), I attended San Jose City College, where I worked on the student newspaper, _The Times_ for a year. I also studied German and Spanish. Unfortunately, I burned the candle at both ends. I left college and hitchhiked north to Vancouver, British Columbia, before turning east. From Calgary, Alberta, a fellow hitcher, LR, and I took a bus north to Edmunton to catch the old Canadian National passenger train to across the great northern prairies to Winnipeg, Manitoba. LR headed on, and I stayed behind to visit Winnipeg. From there to Montreal I rode a bicycle; rode on a motorcycle; hitchhiked again; and rode a school bus. In Montreal I stayed with anti-draft, anti-war protestors (Vietnam, not Iraq) before making my way to New York City. North of the city, in Mount Kisco, I found work and stayed put through the winter. The next summer, I hitched to Mississippi, where I spent a month on a voter registration project. A trip through Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania brought me back to New York state. The father of a girl I was dating offered me the train fare to send me home to California (and to get me away from his daughter). I took more general education courses at San Jose City College. Through Mark Toffelmeier (Willow Glen class of 69), I found a peaceful job at the (old?) Lima, Salmon, Ericson mortuary on South Second Street. In the spring, I was at an anti-war demonstration in San Francisco, where I was beaten by club-wielding thugs hired by the San Francisco Police Department. After recovering from my injury and completing the spring semester, I went back on the road. I once more hitched east, but as before I chose a circuitous route. This time I went via the Pacific Northwest, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri. I took a breather in St. Louis before continuing en route through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York. I wintered in the Boston area, working as a grocery store clerk, apprentice butcher, and delivery boy for an upscale market on Beacon Hill. Boston served as a stopping off place for Europe, where I travelled, lived, and worked for a year: tutoring English in Finland, shoveling up after cows in Switzerland, and running a small electronics parts shop in a factory in Germany. Having met a "Swiss Miss" in Boston, I renewed acquaintance with her while in Europe, met her francophone family in Bern, and started to learn French in order the better to communicate with them, especially since they hated to speak German! I returned to New England, where I worked in a variety of jobs (see "workplace"), got married to my Swiss Miss, then got divorced. I subsequently served in US Navy for five years (see "military"). After my military duty ended, I taught English for 17 years in the Far East: Japan, Korea, Taiwan. During that time, I completed an MA degree from Cal State Dominguez Hills (SoCal) and I wrote a historical novel on the subject of the African slave trade, _Thieves and Blackguards_ available through UMI Dissertations. (See "college" for more details.) In 2005, I returned to the US, joining the Doctor of Arts program in English at Idaho State University in Pocatello. I graduated in the fall of 2009, just in time for the job market to be at its lowest. Oh, well: Have diploma, will travel. I sojourned the 2009-2010 winter in Utah, where I attempted, and failed, to teach high school. As of September 1, I will be in Poland, teaching at a four-year college there. School There were a number of teachers to whom a tip of the hat would be the least I could say in thanks: Karen West, our German teacher for two years, and to Robert Carlisle who taught us German in our senior year. I credit their teaching for spurring on my interest in German, which resulted in a job interview (while hitchhiking) that landed me a very good job (considering my age and inexperience) in Germany. Thanks also to Gayle McGuire, our speech teacher, who kept us on our toes, ready to speak on just about any topic under the sun. To Ed Simmons and Mr. Hill, both of whom should never have left English for admin--a result of the stupid high school system that pays principals and other "top" admin people far more than teachers; they made English literature not only a pleasure but an inspiration. To Ruth Byers and Gladys Wood, whose journalism and editing classes played such an important role in high school (e.g., the article I wrote about the dress code that led in part to the forced early retirement of the chairman of the board of education and which threw out the antediluvian notion of "senior privileges"); more important was the writing I did in college and subsequently for a newspaper--the youngest cub reporter in the small town's history. Last but not least, a big thanks to Donald Anctil, whose fresh perspectives on the social sciences and his devotion to the well being of the students play a continuing role in my advocacy of minority rights. Since there's still space, I'll mention Senor Rosales (sorry no tilde over the n), who changed my perspective entirely about the Spanish language and the needs of Mexican American students--solely through his love of the language and his positive sense of life. College After a couple of hit-and-miss years at San Jose City College, I dropped out to work and see the world--or as much of it as I could on a tight budget. Thanks to friends where I lived on the East Coast, I learned about Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey, which has a flexible degree program, allowing people to combine regular classroom courses with academic tests and distance learning (e.g., correspondence courses). Through Edison, I completed a BA in Humanities, with a concentration in English and foreign languages (French, German, and Spanish). While in the Navy, I attended graduate classes in composition and linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu) part time. Thanks to an officer at my duty station, I learned about an accredited MA program...Expand for more