My recent return to teaching has prompted me to run around the house kind of incessantly singing John Sebastian's theme from Welcome Back Kotter. Not because I'm teaching Sweathogs--I'm actually teaching adults, and they are poised and motivated and actually kind of inspiring in a way that Juan Epstein never was. And none of them has ever responded to a question with a Vinnie Barbarinoesque "What? When? Wheyuh?"
Nevertheless, I felt the song was appropriate because I was going back to the classroom. (And loving it, by the way. I think both my work and my mental health were starting to suffer due to lack of interaction with other humans, and I do have a talent for teaching and it's great to nurture a talent that had been pretty undernourished for the last four years. Oh yeah, also I love doing work that feels important every single day. And yeah, I'm still writing, but now that it's my second job, it's gotten a lot more fun again. So everything is cool.)
Anyway, so perhaps my insistence on singing while I prepare dinner inspired My SISIGWJLAH Wife (I was informed by said amazing woman that the adjective "lovely" was not to her liking, so I will from now on use SISIGWJLAH, which is an acronym for So Incredibly Sexy I Get Wood Just Looking At Her) to suggest that we actually buy the first season of Welcome Back Kotter on DVD.
Both of us find it a somewhat surreal experience--the last time we watched it, we were younger than Vinnie Barbarino--now we're older than Mr. Kotter. (And God knows I feel as old as Mr. Woodman most mornings before I've had my coffee. And yes, I do sort of aspire to that level of grumpiness, though of course I'll never reach it.) Julie Kotter is adorable, joining Bailey Quarters in the parade of Stealth Babes on 70's tv shows. You can have your Farrah and Loni. Give me Marcia Strassman and Jan Smithers! And the show, shockingly, holds up incredibly well. I was really expecting to cringe at how horrible it is, but it's actually not bad at all, and the kids really enjoy it too. They all love Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington. (I'm still a Horshack fan, which puts me in a distinct minority in this family).
Anyway, so the DVDs were a great pick: my SISIGWJLAH wife was, not surprisingly, right again.
