By Sean Arresto This was written in 2003 on the occasion of Jack Rice’s retirement: Close your eyes and think back on your most vivid childhood memories. What comes to mind? Cook-outs with the family? Playing freeze-tag with your closest friends? All the cool toys you used to get for for your birthday? Going to the local bowling alley with your English teacher? Wait, your English teacher never took you bowling? Well my teacher did, and to this day it is one of the fondest, and most lucid, childhood memories that I have left (college erased a good portion of everything pre-’95). I had the good fortune of having Jack…

by Ivan Sayles My father was a teacher in Brownsville, Brooklyn for 30 some odd years. We’re all teachers in a way: we teach our kids, employees and underlings everyday. But to teach as a profession, now that is something wonderful. Then every once in awhile there is that “needle in the haystack,” that special teacher that took the tests, passed the classes, has all the credentials hanging on the wall, but has a gift. Do I remember Mr. Rice? Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? Bright orange hair and a beard, bouncing through the hallways, wearing jeans, a smile and patchouli. But that’s not why I remember him. I…