You’ll get no argument from me that Mr. Donofrio was a great Driver Ed teacher. My buddies also agree that he assumed too much, which led to the downfall of a great—if troubled—man.
I studied tragedy in
Ancient History, but I learned about
it from Mr. Donofrio
when the incident took
place.
Richard Donofrio
had the difficult task of teaching
12th graders how
to drive. He managed this career
by not getting frazzled by us
kids, like when Jamie drove over
the
road cones or backed into the
shop teacher’s fender. He passed me—barely—and freed me to drive to my part-time job. If my new driver’s
license gave me independence,
Mr. Donofrio was the ignition key
to
my future.
Most of us kids saw Driver Ed as a rite of passage. I was reminded of my transition from youth to manhood when I saw Mr. Donofrio years later holding a stop sign at a highway construction site. Maybe we could have blamed Miss Kosciusko for taking Mr. Donofrio from the classroom to the highway and creating the legend that never got into our high school yearbook.
Miss Kosciusko
taught History, and since she spoke
so articulately,
using complete paragraphs, she
had been given the challenge
of getting Mr. Donofrio to come
to
his anniversary surprise party.
Apparently, it was a big thing
at Millard Fillmore High School
for the teachers to honor their
colleagues who had lasted ten
years without a nervous breakdown
or
delirium tremens or having spit
dribble down their chin because
of us students. The parties were
always a quote-unquote surprise.
What’s surprising is that Mr. Donofrio didn’t
know what was coming.
Miss Kosciusko
told me and a few of her favorite
students about
the party. When my friend Jamie
said he’d like to come, too,
she agreed that a few of us could
meet
at the garage where the school
parked its Chevy.
I’ll never know what Miss Kosciusko told Mr. Donofrio to get him out to the garage at 3:00 o’clock on a warm, spring day. Miss Kosciusko with her long brunette hair had all the allure of a Greek Siren, which I also learned in History. Her lingering glances made freshmen guys have to go to the bathroom and cool off. We all liked Miss Kosciusko, but we knew we’d
never get her into our cars.
Jamie and
me and a half dozen others in Honors
History were behind
the garage—the Chevy was parked outside—and saw Mr. Donofrio go inside. Miss Kosciusko followed right behind him. I heard her say, “I’ll
be right back, Richard. Just
get ready for me.”
Maybe five
minutes passed and about every
teacher at Millard
Fillmore loped across the parking
lot with big grins on their faces.
Miss Kosciusko opened the garage
door and everyone hollered “Surprise!”
Jamie had
his camera and ducked right in
under the teachers to
snap the look of astonishment
on Mr. Donofrio’s face. But he didn’t get it—the
face, that is. Mr. Donofrio was
standing in the middle of the
garage naked as a baby and wearing
a traffic
cone on his head.
I elbowed
my way in as Mr. Donofrio took
the cone off his head. “Surprise?” he asked. That’s
what writers call a rhetorical
question.
That was the
last word we ever heard him say.
Miss Kosciusko fainted—or pretended to—and
the others closed the door to
the garage.
Jamie asked
me, “What do you think Miss Kosciusko told him?” I
said she probably used her feminine
wiles. I liked the word wiles.
It was on the vocabulary test
I got an A in.
Mr. Donofrio
suddenly became very ill—probably a life-threatening disease—and a substitute took his Driver Ed classes until summer came. Miss Kosciusko later just froze if anyone ever mentioned Mr. Donofrio’s
name.
I don’t think it was that Mr. Donofrio was pot-bellied or had a scrawny chest or anything that changed his career. He looked okay in his clothes. And cause we played sports, us kids weren’t
really shocked seeing him naked.
But, someone wearing a traffic
cone gets no respect. Jamie and
me think it was the cone that
made Mr. Donofrio quit his job.
That and the copies of the photo Jamie passed around school. I think Jamie was pissed that he had to go to Sears to get his driver training.
