• The custodian noticed my pathetic three dollar garage sale lectern. "I'll build you one." He did, and man, that thing's gonna last forever.
• The secretary would call in my subs for me. I don't even know how to do that.
• The custodian would offer to carry my loads of work for me.
• The secretary would iron the table cloths for the school and clean the teachers' refrigerator.
• The custodian knew where every piece of furniture was hidden on campus and could fix or replace a broken piece after one email.
• The secretary would house, give direction, and encouragement to the worst "academic offender" that our former principal was committed to working with and shopped with the students our school supported to go to out annual D.C/NYC. trip, making sure they had cameras (pre-cell phone days!).
• The custodian personally fought--and won--the infamous 2012 Rat War of Outer Bungalowia.
• The secretary personally helped the financial secretary prepare delicious food for the staff in the legendary year of Waffle Wednesdays, 2013. (A subsequent school-wide weight loss challenge has ended that beloved tradition. Now I cry a little inside, every Wednesday.)
• The custodian would turn on the heat in our non-insulated bungalows on chilly mornings. (And he never told the teachers, but I found out he would prepare the avocados for our guacamole for our frequent staff potlucks before the end of that tradition because of the subsequent weight loss challenge.)
• The secretary would hear my joys, burdens, dreads, and general silliness with love. She said I reminded her of her own daughter, and she has been my school mom.
They take with them decades of knowledge and unconscious competence. Both have done their best to leave well-marked trails for their successors, but all I can say in response to my interior Saturday morning cartoon "Dun dun dunnnnn!" cliff hanger music is we shall see.
(Personally? My school parents are leaving and I am sad.)
