These are the People ... Mr. Salvatore Gallo
He once brought half a sheet cake to class and proceeded, with the assistance of a plastic knife, to apportion it so precisely that each child in the classroom of thirty students received an equal portion. The precision of the cut was, at least from where I sat, an amazing feat of exactitude as if it had been made by a bakery template.
Mr. Salvatore Gallo’s middle section was shaped uncannily like a boulder punctuated by his “non-existent” neck upon which sat an exceedingly round, shiny head, completely bald atop and shorn of any and all hair on the sides of his head. No! Mr. Gallo did not wax his head, but he did perspire quite a lot which would explain his gleam.
His face was one of those which only a mother loves. His rather unhappy teeth would have caused even a seasoned dentist to wince, but he had a smile that shone like none other. His nose, not prominent in any positive sense, was broad and flattened as if it had known the impact of too many fists in his youth. All in all, his rather tough exterior contrasted remarkably with his otherwise gentle manner.
In other words, Mr. Gallo, of whom I have but pleasant recollections, was one of those rare human beings who reminds us that beauty dwells in the heart.
Had he lived in an earlier time, he might well have been the educator upon whom Henry Brooks Adams might have based his adage: "A teacher affects eternity because he can never know where his influence stops.”
Mr. Gallo, like all who enter the profession of teaching children, receives the enviable opportunity to achieve a species of immortality if he can but change one life for the better.
Though he was not the first teacher to leave an indelible impression on my life, the picture I retain of Mr. Gallo occupies one of the finest frames in the gallery of people whose lives have touched mine.
At the end of the day, Mr. Salvatore Gallo, my eighth grade civics teacher, personified a "mechaya", a relief, a respite, a welcome change. I can only speak for myself naturally, but I’ll venture the opinion that if a student did not look forward to his class, even though tired and worn thin by the day's business, that alone would constitute serious prima facie evidence of something being seriously amiss with that particular individual.
Maybe it was just me, but I have always been attentive to our oft-hidden human faces. In other words, I have had an eye for special people from a very young age. More inclined toward quiet observation of others than ever much of a chatterbox, my observations led me to conclude Mr. Gallo exemplified the virtues of simple wisdom and kindness.
He was a man driven to punctiliousness and whose severe regimen of class assignment protocol was such that, should a student not follow it, he would be penalized anywhere from one to five points.
Mind you, that’s a serious consequence for a conscientious eighth grader. For example, each student had to draw with the precision of a budding engineer a one inch square box in the upper left hand corner of his notebook paper into which Mr. Gallo would pen the grade, and not just any old square but a neatly drawn one, without overlapping lines at any of the four corners.
As fastidious as he was, it was equally imprudent to get Mr. Gallo mad, but be clear on one thing. Mr. Gallo was a master teacher and, as such, he used his rather ogreish appearance to maintain classroom orderliness. As a result, kids learned in Mr. Gallo’s class.
There was a student in our 9th period class, one David, on whom misfortune fell one afternoon after pushing Mr. Gallo's buttons once too many times.
A mere twit of a lad whose mouth was bigger than the rest of his person, he suffered that day the fright of a one on one, a nose to nose with Mr. Gallo that took place in the adjacent coat room. When its door opened after what seemed to be an insufferably interminable length of time-which in fact lasted no more than three minutes-David emerged looking more than a wee bit rattled.
I doubt he has forgotten that afternoon.
If you have had a "Mr. Gallo" in your life, count your blessings for not everyone has enjoyed such great fortune.
Alan D. Busch
February 2008
