An Open Letter to My French Teachers

Dear Monsieur Mathieu, Monsieur Roy, Monsieur Wallman and Madame Plaunt,

This is a letter of apology.  And regret.

I don't regularly go down the Path of IF-ONLY, but these days, I've trudged down a few times.

If only I had listened in French class.

If only I had cared about the conjugation of 'les verbes'.

If only.

Monsieur Mathieu and Monsieur Roy, I was very young in your French classes and hadn't quite hit my full out rebellious-I'll-never-use-that-in-the-real-world phase, so to you, I only apologize for not quite giving my all.

But, for real.  For REALLY real, I need to apologize to dear Monsieur Wallman and Madame Plaunt.

(Some background information:  I went to a private Christian school and in my highschool French class, there were 4 students including myself.)

Wally Wallman (that's not his real name, just what we called him), I remember sadly how we would misbehave in your class and you would just tolerate us.  I remember how we would beg you to take us to Galleria (the really cool shopping mall at the time) for class and that we would PROMISE to speak French while we shopped, and you would take us and when we got there, not only would we NOT speak a single solitary word of French but we would take off on you and go shopping in stores like Canary Island and Gap.  I'm regretting those days right now.

Why didn't I think French would somehow be important in my future?  My own words ring in my ears, deafeningly loud:  "I'll never need to know how to speak French."

Wasted time.  Wasted youth.

And dear Madame Plaunt who I kindly referred to as "Madam-eeee" the entire time you attempted to bring my grade 11 French class up from our grade 7 level of French to something even slightly closer to grade 8. But alas, your energy was wasted.  I can recall very little from those classes other than your laughter (due completely to frustration, I'm sure.)

And here I am now.  In a French speaking country.  Attempting to drag out from the recesses of my brain any sort of French....a word, a phrase, a conjugation of a verb and I think back to YEARS of French lessons, somehow lost and wasted on me.

I bet you're all laughing now.  I bet it feels really good, too.

I bet I would if I were you.

There is hope however.  Today, alone, I negotiated the price of bananas with a woman and I don't think I embarrassed myself.  My little French "professeur" is a 10 year old boy named Emmanuel who has agreed to help me with French if I will help him with English.

Perhaps he will have better luck.

Sweet teachers, I know you will all have extra stars on your crowns in heaven for dealing with the likes of me over the years.  Thank you for your years of service and know that, even though it's a little late, I appreciate what you tried to teach me!