The rewards of teaching

Dear Mr Deemer,
This is going to be kind of long but a few years ago I was given three months to live and started thinking about people who changed my life in a positive way.  You were one of seven people that changed the way I thought and lived my life.  I hope you will take time to read one last paper from me.

I had you as an English Professor winter term of 1969 at U of O.  I had recently returned from Viet Nam and returned to the U of O which was not a real friendly place for a Nam vet.  I left Eugene after Spring term.  I am sure you remember the things going on in Eugene at that time.  The Eugene city police decided I needed to transfer to OSU since two friends and I showed up at all of the war protests as counter demonstrators.  During that time I wrote a paper called "Seven Days in the Nam" about my experiences during a week that we had terrible losses and I was wounded.  I wrote that paper with a big chip on my shoulder expecting you to give me an F since it was about the war.  You surprised me by giving me an A or a B and ask me if I had read some author that you thought my writing resembled.  You gave me a B in the class.  When I transferred to OSU my grades were not quite up to par and I needed 1 point to add to my GPA to get in.  I called to ask you if you would consider changing my grade to an A.  Your wife answered and said you were very ill and that she would ask you about the grade.  She did not sound very hopeful.  She called me back later and said you  would raise my grade.

I was able to to transfer and spent two years taking agriculture courses and then moving to Burns to farm...  

You taught me that people could have differing views about things and still be respectful and even be friends.  You also were there when I needed a boost in transferring to OSU.  It may not have seemed like much to you but it changed my thinking and my behavior toward other people.  Had it not been for you I may have committed murder and would probably have committed suicide.

This came out of the blue today. No memory of it, of course, but that hardly matters. I had my ass saved more than once by a flexible teacher; it's called passing on the karma.