Lou Fererri: A Short Story

Sitting at his desk, in his well-worn, clay covered shoes, faded jeans, red flannel shirt and t-shirt, is Mr. Lou Fererri. He looks as if he fits perfectly in the clay dust covered classroom, art covering the walls and ceiling, natural lighting spilling through the large windows that line floor to ceiling, along a whole wall of the room. There he sits at his desk, spending most of his days there at his job as an art teacher, a job he never expected to have, nor expected that he would even want. “It’s amazing how you never know” he said, “how the little things can change everything.” Looking back at his elementary school days, he remembers a specific, “single most defining point” in his life, “every year, my school would hold a writing contest”
He was an on-hand art person at many colleges and universities, but he never wanted to be a full time teacher, or even considered it. Lou did not like the thought of having to teach kids, and would rather spend the majority of his time focusing on his own art projects. However, during his early fifties, Lou was having a conversation in a friend’s living room during a party, when he heard a snatch of conversation coming from the next room, about an art teaching job opening. Out of curiosity, he excused himself from his current conversation and went to inquire about it. Lou heard that the current art teacher, Caroline, was going to Poland for a few years and that her job was now open, but, it was a high school teaching job; which Lou had never been interested in. He got the information for the high school, and decided to give them a call anyways and ended up doing an interview only to find out that he got the
He could teach the way he wanted, mentor them as he watched their talents boom, and he loved his students. He notified the colleges that he used to do work for that he would be taking yet another year off to teach high school, but then after that second year, he realized that teaching was where he was meant to be. Lou kept repeating multiple times throughout the interview how its “amazing you never know” for example how just hearing a bit of conversation at a party, got him a job that he never really wanted, but now loves and can not get away