A 7th-grade homeroom teacher at Foster A. Begg Jr. High School makes a promise he knew he couldn’t keep to a promising student. That was the point
by Steve Fulton
In the fall of 1982 I start 7th grade at Foster A. Begg Jr. High School in Manhattan Beach.
My classes are as follows: Homeroom, Honors English, 7th Grade Math, Honors Science, Honors Social Science, Drama, Spanish 1, and P.E.
I was a decent student all through elementary school, racking up good grades and the fistful of dollar bills my dad paid for every “A” on my report cards.
However, at the dawn of 7th grade things are changing.
I used to love school, but now I’m distracted.
I spend a lot of time reading the BASIC language manuals I borrow from the Manhattan Heights Library, and designing my own video games.
Computer languages seem second nature to me, so why not a foreign language?
Ms. Boerman calls on kids at random to name something in the room in Spanish. I am terrified of her calling on me, I have committed only a few Spanish words to memory. One of them el reloj, which means “clock.”
I stare at the thing in class, silently begging for it to move faster.
When our grades come out for our first progress report, it’s “A’s” across the board.
Except for a “B-” in Spanish.
The worst grade I have ever received in any class.
*
I’m sitting at my back row desk in my homeroom, holding my progress report.
Trying not to cry.
Crying would be a Junior High mistake beyond all others.
I am no good at Spanish.
I can never imagine being any better at it than a B-.
Mr. Hughes, my homeroom teacher notices.
Damn it.
He asks me to stay after class.
Mr. Hughes teaches reading at Begg.
He’s a quiet man, and I’m mostly quiet too.
Mr. Hughes has never asked me to talk to him before.
My stomach knots as the first period bell rings.
I have no idea what he wants.
I’ve never seen it myself, but Mr. Hughes has a reputation of being mean.
I swing my wilderness Experience backpack over my shoulder and get up to leave.
“Steve, I noticed you look pretty upset today, what’s up?”
I stutter.
“Umm, I err, I…I..I.”
Trying to get words out of my mouth is sometimes, the hardest thing in the world for me.
I try again.
“Sp..Sp…Sp…Spanish, i…i…i…it’s too hard for me.”
He looks at me for a second and then he looks down at the book I was holding: “Computers For Kids – Atari.”
“You know, Spanish is an elective. You don’t have to take it.”
“Really?” I say.
“Let me find out if there is something else you can do during that period.”
“Oh…Oh…Oh kay, great.”
I quickly walked out the door and up the ramp to drama class.
My timid response masks my complete and utter joy at this new idea.
I might be able to get out of Spanish!
The idea was breathtaking.
I spend the rest of the day in joyous daze.
I can not wait another minute to hear what Mr. Hughes might have for me to do instead of Spanish class.
As drama practice starts my Spanish problems feel a million miles away.
*
The next day in homeroom I prop up my Atari book to hide my face.
I try to concentrate on the BASIC programs inside but it is difficult to digest any of it.
All I want is to hear what Mr. Hughes has to say about Spanish.
About 10 minutes before homeroom ends, Mr. Hughes calls me up to his desk.
“I talked to Mr. Donalou…”
Crap. Mr. Donalou is the principal, I did not think this would go that far.
“He will call your mom later today. He wants to speak with her.”
Crap crap.
My heart sank.
When I get home I go directly to my room, get out a notebook, and start writing BASIC code.
I don’t have a computer, and no prospect of getting one.
But I imagine what I might do with one by writing code in notebooks.
I hear the phone ring, my mom answers.
“Yes Mr. Donalou, this is Steve’s mom,” I hear from the living room.
I block the rest out, instead concentrating on how to use the “plot” statement.
When my mom tells me the gist of the call, I can see an adult strategy emerging.
“Mr. Donalou said Ms. Boerman does not want you to leave class, and that there are no other electives that period. Your choice is to stay in Spanish or be Mr. Hughes student aide until the end of the trimester.”
I think now in 2024 Los Angeles, knowing Spanish would be a nice bonus.
But I was not thinking that way in 1982.
“I want to be Mr. Hughes student aide.”
Relief swells over me.
I am free of Spanish class, “El Reloj,” “Esteban” and most everything else that haunts me in the 7th grade.
*
The next day I begin my new job working in Mr. Hughes’ class.
He teaches reading to 6th graders.
“Your job is to grade the papers and quizzes at a table in the back of the room.”
“The answer keys are in the drawer.”
“When you are done, go ahead and read your computer books.”
I quickly learn ways to mechanize the tasks.
Sometimes I grade the same question on all papers first.
Sometimes I look for specific key-words in sentences.
My brain feels the need to find ways to speed up the job, and find efficiencies.
It’s like I can’t control it, it just happens.
No matter what, I always have time to read a few pages of “Computers For Kids – Atari” or “Atari BASIC.”
As the weeks of the first trimester grind on, Mr. Hughes comes back often to talk about things.
He’s interested in what I think about the books the kids are reading.
I tell him I think the book “The Cay” is an allegory for “death.”
He nods his head but doesn’t say anything.
“So tell me about BASIC” he asks one day.
Mr. Hughes appears genuinely interested, so I push past my urge to stammer and answer him.
“W.W.W.Well, BASIC means ‘Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. It’s sort of a common language for many computers. With it, you can make most computers do anything you want.”
“So it’s kind of like a Lingua Franca or Rosetta Stone?”
I’ve only heard one of those things before, but I don’t want Mr. Hughes to know that, so I just say “Yeah, umm sure.”
His eyes light-up.
Like he suddenly gets the connection.
Just like when I watch him in class getting satisfaction when some kid finds some meaning out of their assigned books.
Mr. Hughes is a tall, balding man in his 40s who wears tweed jackets with elbow patches, and leather boots right out a ‘60s Mod men’s shot. He looks anachronistic in the New Wave 1980’s. He seems to love teaching, but something seems “off” that I can’t put my finger on.
What Mr. Hughes is not: he’s is not mean, not by a longshot.
*
When the first trimester is almost over, Mr. Hughes comes back to my desk and asks, “What do you want to do next trimester?”
I’d forgotten that this teacher’s aide job was temporary.
“Your choices are to remain in my classroom as an aide, work as library aide, or be a computer lab aide.”
Computer Lab aide?
I was shocked. Computer Lab Aid had never been discussed before.
I have no idea what it is, but it sounds amazing.
Even though I read books about computers, I do not have access to one.
Computer Lab sounds like a real, bonafide outlet to get to use computers on a daily basis.
At least, that’s what I imagine it means.
I decide on the spot that there is nothing I want more than be a Computer Lab Aide.
Even though I have no idea what it is.
There is no other choice for me.
“Good, I thought you might choose that.”
Then Mr. Hughes goes back to his desk at the front of the room.
That night, my imagination runs wild with possibilities.
Would I get to use software?
What about programming?
Maybe I can finally code some of my ideas that live in my notebooks and on my graph paper?
The next day in the homeroom, Mr. Hughes seems distracted.
I never get to talk to him.
Instead, I read my Atari Basic book even more feverishly than ever.
I have no idea what is in-store for me when my job begins in the computer lab, but I need to prepare the only way I know how.
So I just kept reading and reading.
*
The next Monday, instead of going to Room 22 to help Mr. Hughes, I slip by to Room 23, and walk into the future.
Inside this little room are about 15 Apple IIe computers, all humming away running Bank Street Writer, Apple’s word processor.
There are several adults who help in the Lab. Ms. Brown, the faculty administrator, runs it.
I hand her my transfer paper, and tell her that I am supposed to be there.
“Of course you are. “This is our lab. We have a class set of Apple IIe computers and over there, our new Apple Lisa!”
She points towards what looks like an IBM PC on a desk separated from all the other computers. One of the other adults is trying to get it to work.
“We are still setting it up. Now, look over here, we are getting ready for a writing class.”
Mrs. Brown shows me around to all the Apple IIe computers.
“Your job today will be to help anyone who needs it when they are writing.”
“Crap.”
I’d have to fake it.
I’ve never seen Bank Street Writer before.
Ms. Brown was sold a bad bill of goods with me.
I spy a laminated card on one of the desks.
Keyboard combos for doing things like [s]aving, [l]oading, bolding.
I study it.
I feel my hands sweat as my brain wraps around the card.
The Lab fills with 30 6th graders fighting to sit in front of a computer.
The lesson is to write a few sentences and save them to a 5.25″ floppy disk.
I float around the room holding my laminated card.
Most of the kids are too busy pushing each other to care about the Apple IIe.
I help a few get their work saved, but not many.
It feels like: unmitigated disaster.
I’m going to be fired on my first day.
After the kids file out, I wait for Ms. Brown’s wrath.
When her words come they strike me to my core.
“That was one of our best classes ever!”
Ms. Brown might be the most optimistic teacher I’ve ever met.
I leave, feeling that I can conquer anything.
*
I can’t wait to get back to the lab the next day.
When I arrive in room 22, Ms. Brown is absent.
I ask one of the adult aides what I should do, she just looks at me coldly, “Stay the f…k out of my way.”
It might have been “don’t get in my way!” or “get out of my way.”
The message is loud and clear.
Yesterday was a mirage.
I am not really welcome in this world.
My stomach knots.
I want to keel over.
That terrible feeling washes through my system.
The one that arrives when an adult is upset for uncontrollable reasons.
I don’t know where her anger came from.
I cocoon-up.
Soundly rejected by my 7th grade peers? That’s a daily occurrence.
But an adult doing the same thing is too much to bear.
I never learn her name, but in my heart she will always be “the mean one.”
I sit down at one of the Apple IIe computers in the back of the room.
I file through a box of floppy disks until I find one that looks intriguing:
Sands Of Egypt.
I put the disk into drive A: and reboot the computer.
A hi-res title screen for the game displays.
I am playing a full-on adventure game on a computer in the middle of the school day.
I’d never done anything like it before.
I do not want to stop.
It feels Wrong.
Elicit.
But it also feels good.
Especially in the light of what “the mean one” said.
No one comes back to talk to me that day.
So I just keep traveling across the desert near Cairo.
The bell rings.
I get-up to leave.
*
The rest of the week mirrors day #2.
Most of the other adults are fine.
They go about their business, doing their thing.
I ask if I can help them, and some have little jobs, and others don’t.
“The mean one” stays mean.
Unrelentingly mean.
When she isn’t in the back fiddling with the still dormant Lisa, she complains to no one in particular that I do everything wrong.
*
I’ve pondered this for 40 years.
I think now that maybe, I get it.
I was free, very enthusiastic, untrained labor.
She probably loved computers just as much as me.
Maybe she fought hard against a male dominated system to just land the job.
She didn’t like the idea of some kid taking something away from her.
I had no idea, because we did not talk.
I didn’t have the insight at 12 years old to understand any of this.
*
In homeroom that first week Mr. Hughes was uncommonly quiet.
I want to tell him about “the mean one.”
Ask him what to do.
But I just can’t.
I feel like I’ve abandoned him.
Left him to grade all those quizzes on his own.
I see him reading his book silently at the front of the class.
I read mine in the back.
I slip out when the bell rings.
*
Things get worse as the week wears on.
At one point “the mean one” asks me to get a printer set-up.
I have never done it before, however, there is a simple chart on the wall explaining it.
I get it done quite quickly thinking this would please her.
But she only seems to get more upset.
When will Ms. Brown return?
This sends me to the back of the room again.
I spend much of the rest of the week playing Sands Of Egypt.
It makes me feel better.
I pretty much shut everything else out.
It occurs to me that it was very easy to get “lost” in the computer.
Shutting out all else.
Focusing to complete a task.
It’s similar to when I play Asteroids or Pac-Man.
But this is different.
Deeper.
Richer.
Maybe the adults in the computer lab will not welcome me with open arms.
But the computers do not play favorites.
With the machines, the playing field is level.
They only discriminate when the commands are not correct.
They will be my way through.
*
Within a few weeks, with Ms. Brown back, I develop a computer lab routine.
I help out out in classes, connect printers, become adept at setting up software, and show kids the key combos for Bank Street Writer.
I avoid “the mean one.”
I focus on the machines.
In my spare time I play Sands Of Egypt, Murder On The Orient Express, and a couple other games I find on the floppy disks in the back of the room.
I slowly prove my worth.
Before I realize it, Ms. Brown and most of the other adults treat me as one of their own.
*
The best day ever comes about a month into the trimester.
I sit down at a machine in the back, flip through the disks and find one called “Applesoft Basic.”
Programming.
With all the static around “the mean one,” I’d forgotten all about it.
I fumble in my backpack and find my computer code notebook.
Most of the programs I have inside are written in Atari BASIC.
With the Applesoft BASIC guide I find on the back table, I translate them.
The first game in my notebook chooses a random number between 1 and 100.
Then it asks you to guess it.
It is the simplest of games.
As I type the code, the world around-me disappears.
I am 100% focused on the keyboard, the monitor, the lines of code.
It is the machine and I only.
Not all my commands are correct.
I’ve only ever written in long-hand.
Nothing was ever tested.
The Apple IIe complains.
But it’s a valid complaint.
I fix my errors and move on.
The work is Engrossing.
Captivating.
Nothing. Else. Matters.
I finish and then start the program.
] RUN”
The Apple IIe sputters into action.
] GUESS A NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 100”
First contact.
My world will never be the same again.
*
Well into the 2nd trimester, I see Mr. Hughes a couple of times.
Once he sticks his head into the computer room to ask how I am doing.
Another time I see him talking to Ms. Brown.
In homeroom, it’s still mostly silence though.
I imagine he’s mad at me for leaving him with all those 6th graders.
*
As I continued through the 3rd trimester, I feel myself becoming one with the lab.
As long as I avoid “the mean one,” I can play in a world on computers for 52 minutes a day.
By May 1983, I have the run of the place.
I can perform almost any task asked of me, and I still manage to play games and program most of the time.
The Computer is my favorite place in the world.
*
“The mean one,” loves LOGO!
It’s a visual language designed to help little kids understand computers.
It’s not BASIC, but it’s still programming.
I see her working with it on one of the lab machines.
I walk over by her side.
I tell myself to not stutter when I speak.
“H.H.How does that work?” I ask.
“Oh” she says, “You.”
But then I sense her defenses drop.
She’s happy to show me how LOGO works.
Almost overly enthusiastic.
“LOGO is the future,” she tells me.
I actually don’t care for LOGO, but I still listen.
Ms. Brown sees us and comes over.
“Steve, you seems to love programming.”
“Yeah, I do!”
“Maybe next year you could teach programming to some of the kids?”
Next Year.
I never even considered next year.
*
On the last day of 7th grade, I arrive at homeroom with a box of Italian candy.
Mr. Hughes arranged a “food of the world” party.
Each of us put the food from a “country of our origin” on our desk, and the other kids come around to sample everything.
My Italian candy is not very popular, so I sit most of the time by myself, reading my Atari BASIC manual, with a nearly full box in front of me.
In the middle of the period, Mr. Hughes wanders back.
“How was Ms. Brown this year?”
I look up from my book, then gently put it down on the desk. The pages of the softbound flipped closed by themselves.
“Great! I loved it!”
“I think I know what I want to do when I grow-up.”
“What?” he replies laughing, “teach in the computer lab, or program computers?”
“Hmm. Both maybe!”
It is true. I’ve grown to really enjoy the computer lab, and I can picture myself working in one when I grow up, teaching people about the wonder of computers.
Mr. Hughes pauses for a second. As if he was thinking of something.
It was not a long pause, but noticeable enough that I still recall the moment to this day.
He pulls up the chair next to me and sits down and starts again.
“Steve, Next year, I’m going to get my own Apple IIe computer in this classroom.”
“Really?”
I’m genuinely surprised.
I never knew that a regular classroom could have its’ own computer.
“Sure!”
“We’ll put it right back there next to the window.”
“We will use it for writing and teaching kids programming next year.”
“So start thinking of the stuff we can do with it.”
Mr. Hughes looks at me like he really means it.
“Okay Cool.” I say back to him, trying to stay calm even though it sounds really exciting.
Mr Hughes is not mad at me after all.
The computer in his class seemed cool too.
He also confirms my suspicion.
I always felt that he had a hand in getting me the job as Computer Aid.
He seems to know Mrs. Brown pretty well.
Now he plans on getting his own computer in his own classroom.
It all makes perfect sense.
Mr. Hughes is as interested in computers as I am.
I left that day with three quarters of a box of Italian candy and high hopes for 8th grade.
*
Over the summer of 1983, between 7th and 8th grade, my brother Jeff and I work very hard to convince our dad that we need a computer of our own.
The computer lab proved to me that my future lay in technology.
I hope the straight “A’s” on my report card prove it to my dad.
When September approaches I get more and more excited about the year ahead.
My brother Jeff will be a computer lab aide, too.
Ms. Brown wants me to teach programming.
Best of all Mr. Hughes will have an Apple IIe computer of his own.
It will be the best year ever.
*
When my class schedule arrives in the mail the week before school, I am shocked to see that my homeroom had been changed to room 3 with Ms. Davis.
I still have computer lab 3rd period, but I had no idea why I was not in Mr. Hughes’ homeroom.
Did he kick me out?
Was the last day “computer conversation” some kind of “test” I did not pass?
I had Mrs. Davis for 6th grade English class and she scared the hell out of me.
On the first day of school I sheepishly entered Mrs. Davis’ homeroom, and tell her that I used to be in Mr. Hughes’ homeroom.
She kindly welcomes me and tells me where to sit.
Then she goes right back to treating everyone like they were imbeciles, and it’s like 6th grade English all over again.
There is no computer in Ms. Davis class.
There is no hope that there would ever be a computer in Ms. Davis’ class.
Instead of the silent, individual reading we did in Mr. Hughes homeroom class, Ms. Davis has the entire class read-aloud from a literature book of mostly narrative stories.
I stutter uncontrollably every time it’s my turn, while absorbing the laughter of my classmates.
It feels like hell.
*
I question a couple of the other kids from homeroom with Mr. Hughes, but none of them know why we were not in his class.
Most of them were quite happy to be in other homerooms.
With the crazy mad scientist Mr. Russell.
With the wise cracking math man, Mr. Genario.
No one else seems to care.
It tears at me.
Why would he make such interesting suggestions and promises at year’s end just to snatch them away from me?
It’s weird.
*
The Computer Lab with Ms Brown is better than last year.
“The mean one” is still here, but not quite so mean anymore.
I have more free reign than ever to do what I want.
A new wrinkle too.
A company named Pertech will donate a set of 24 high-end CPM workstations to our school.
By the second trimester they will arrive, and it will be our job to explore them and make them work.
*
Still, I could not help but wonder why I am not in Mr. Hughes’ homeroom any longer.
Why is he not allowing me to see his Apple IIe computer?
A couple weeks into the school year, I get up the nerve to go ask him.
Instead of going to room 23 immediately for 3rd period, I stop just short to visit him in room 22.
I tried the knob, the door is locked.
Oh.
Mr. Hughes did not kick me out of his homeroom.
Mr. Hughes is not working at our school any more.
Why had I not figured that out before?
Maybe I just never considered the possibility.
I ask Mrs. Brown about him, but she only mumbles something I can not hear, and tells me to load LOGO on a couple computers for a class the next period.
It feels to me like Mr. Hughes has been fired.
For a couple days my mind is filled with reasons why Mr. Hughes has been fired.
He did not get along with Mr. Donalou.
Too many complaints about him being “mean.”
He quit?
*
A few weeks later, I slip into Ms. Davis’ homeroom class like it is any other day.
I sit down.
Fold my hands.
Quietly you look forward, waiting for the instructions.
Would it be more of the “story” for me to stutter over?
A random lecture about discipline?
Ms. Davis asks a girl to stand-up and read the daily school bulletin.
Just after news about the sale at the student store, upcoming talent show tryouts, and the yearbook purchase deadline there is a final note that said something like this:
“There will be a memorial service in the quad during 3rd period. Any student who had known Mr. Hughes or had him as a teacher could come and say goodbye.”
Had known Mr. Hughes?
Say Goodbye?
What the f…k?
Did I miss something?
Where was my head for the first couple months of the school year?
Had I been so engrossed in my own pursuits that I totally missed the signs that were right in front of me?
Mr. Hughes was not fired.
Mr. Hughes is dead.
*
I don’t make it to the service during 3rd period.
I’m too shocked and embarrassed to show my face, even though no one cares or even knows why I feel that way.
My absence still haunts me 40 years later.
Like usual, it was all in my head.
I was stuck in my own head.
I find out later that Mr. Hughes died of brain cancer.
The same summer I imagined the possibility of getting a new Atari Computer for Christmas, he had spent dreaming about living one day at a time.
I am not mad at Mr. Hughes for not telling me he was sick.
I suppose I should be sad sad, but I’m not.
I’m just numb.
I go back to being a regular 8th grader after that.
Working in the computer lab.
Trying to not think about the future.
The numbness is not temporary.
It lasts almost 40 years.
*
One quiet night this fall.
My body is relaxed.
Brain whirring over some computer project or another.
I think of my friend Brandon.
He worked with me at the library, 319.
He was an English teacher just like Mr. Hughes.
For 25 years.
He just died of brain cancer.
Almost exactly 40 years to the day Mr. Hughes befell the same fate.
Will his students remember him like I remember Mr. Hughes?
I think of my wife.
Still a teacher in Manhattan Beach.
Will her kids remember her jokes and her laughter and how she taught them to read?
Or will it all just be fleeting moments?
A bit of joy that connects long tendrils of dull, regular life?
The fate of those who give their lives so others can fulfill theirs.
Then for some reason.
Right there in the middle of my thoughts.
My mind slips back to that last day of 7th grade.
To the final conversation with Mr. Hughes.
To that long remembered moment.
Sitting at my desk with that box of Italian Candy.
June 1983.
Mr, Hughes tall frame, bald head, wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches.
Sitting next to my desk.
Telling me his plans for the future.
The Apple computer in the back of his class room.
But there was no future.
Those were not real plans at all.
There was never going to be an Apple IIe in room 22.
Those were just the dreams of a short timer.
A man who knew his days were numbered.
Who already knew he was sick.
Who knew the dream could never possibly come true.
But then a thought occurs to me.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
Instead of keeping the dreams to himself.
Mr. Hughes handed me those dreams on that day in room 22.
He trusted me keep them safe.
Maybe I was one kid who he thought could steward them into reality?
So his dream of computers teaching kids would not die with him?
And then, that Christmas 1983.
Just two months after I learned he passed away.
And mainly because of my success in computer lab.
I became the proud owner of a second-hand Atari 800 computer.
The single greatest gift my dad ever gave me.
And with that computer the rest of my life became possible.
A career in software development.
Books written on programming.
A constant urge to never stop creating.
I’m certain where it all started.
Right there in the back of the room 22 in June 1983.
When Mr. Hughes offered me his dreams.
So maybe, as long as I keep making things.
Keep feeling wondrous about technology.
Keep trying to pass that wonder onto the next generation.
Then the dreams of Mr. Hughes and his Apple IIe will never have to die.
They will instead be woven into everything I do.
The legacy of a teacher. ER
