Something you didn't know about my favorite professor

When I was in Professor Sievert's Teaching Bible History class, he was probably at 48 years or so as a teacher and professor. My mom had him in college and he was definitely NOT her favorite teacher. He apparently was pretty tough and not-at-all chummy with the student body at that time twenty-some years earlier.
I was a bit concerned about this upcoming class as most of my friends had had Uncle Eric the semester before and always seemed to be writing and rewriting lesson plans and then waiting for all those red marks and the dreaded "See Me" on the front page. They would then have to trudge up to the second floor in Old Main and wait in line on hard chairs for Prof. Sievert to show them how correct their handwriting upstrokes or how they needed to change all those "Do" questions to no trace of the word. Now 33 years later, we are still reminded about using higher level questioning during in-service meetings. Needless to say, my classmates were enormously relieved when the semester exams were over and they would no longer have to follow the "See Me" directive any more.
 When it was my turn. I knew to always put upstrokes at the end of my letters, but he found plenty that I missed. I was always wary of Do questions and pretty much didn't use them unless I could absolutely not think of anything better. So I made that same trek up those creaky stairs and waited for my turn to come up with a better way to ask the question in the presence of the feared tyrant-of-the-classroom. I can't say why it was, but I enjoyed the class and learned more about the craft of teaching than in any other undergrad class. When my mom heard that my favorite teacher was Eric Sievert, she almost dropped the pot of water she was transferring from the sink. The musical tone of her "What??" got higher than what I had ever imagined was possible to hit without professional intervention. As I said earlier, he wasn't her favorite. This was the day that I found out. No worries, I liked making my choices based not on what others found acceptable. If you don't believe that, you should hear some of the electronic music I owned on LP. Every hear of  Sequencer by Larry Fast and Synergy? Had the Games album, too.
I don't recall how we got to teasing each other a bit, but I do remember one line that he used (I use it occasionally with some of my geometry students and they figure its part of their math teacher's math humor that they have to endure). Uncle Eric met me at the door before class one day and asked me if I wanted to fight,  how do you answer this question from a 70+ year old legend? I bit and said, OK. His response was that I should go wait outside and if he wasn't there in five minutes I should start without him.
I will tell you to this day, I still use every ounce of wisdom I was able to glean from that one semester class. I even will remember to make sure my letters move up and away when I write in cursive despite the fact that very few of my student can read my cursive, or anyone's cursive for that matter. It's still my tribute to Uncle Eric.
My college days took an unusual turn one semester later and I found myself away from campus when I should have been finishing. When I returned a year later, eager to complete those remaining credits and get out teaching (working an awful job putting up TV cable on power poles will get one refocused),  I was working two part-time jobs, going to school full-time, and getting the best grades of my life. About 2 to 3 weeks back to school, I encountered Uncle Eric in an upstairs hallway as we headed in opposite directions.  It was the second time I had the chance to greet him at school. The  first time he had inquired about a few things, asked about my little family. We lived in a four room house the size of one car garage with heaters that didn't work particularly well during yet another brutal Minnesota winter. How we had money to buy food is still something only God knows. We were poor, but we didn't really know it. Well, I didn't. I'm sure Dee did. But we had each other and a steady stream of friends to come down and visit our little house.
So here I am greeting the man that I respected above all others, chatting, and then moving on. But after a couple steps, he gruffly called out my last name, something that he had often barked before. I turned around to see him digging into his wallet. He took out a 20 and handed it to me and said, "Take your bride out to dinner." then turned around and continued on his way.
It felt like quite a long time before I could do the same.