Remembering Mr. Saggio

A Retro Post from Jan. of 2024

As my subscriber base on grown so much this year, I like to periodically republish something from the early days of Morning Musings. Mr. Saggio had a very brief role in my life but he had a lasting impact. I hope you enjoy this one.

It was just a little memo-sized note, long forgotten and fading with time. I found it as I was looking through photos in preparation for my Mom’s Celebration of Life. It was in a Memory Book that she had made for me. It was from Mr. Saggio, my high school creative writing teacher. I only had him for one semester but he, perhaps, had a greater impact on me than any teacher I ever had.

When he signed my yearbook, he had written that I was his choice as “Most Likely to Succeed” but, for all I knew, he may have written that in everyone’s yearbook. Finding this personal note, though, reminded me why I have never let the dream die completely:

“You have a unique talent. I am sorry that we were not able to get some scholarships but keep writing, whatever you do. Subscribe to the Writers Digest or other like publications that take reader submissions. You will do well if you believe in yourself.”

Over the years, I have tried a few times to find him through social media or internet searches but he seemed to have vanished in time. He had written a book that year called the “Worm in My Apple”, a compilation of a weekly humor column he penned for our local newspaper. It is, of course, out of print but I found a copy at a smaller internet site and ordered it. I owed that much to Mr. Saggio.

He was a small man who closely resembled Mr. Whipple (for those that remember the old Charmin commercials back in the seventies). To say he was a little eccentric would probably be an understatement, but he was such a wonderful teacher! I am sure that his class was probably the high light of many of our days. It was just an elective, a bit of a fluff class, but he made it meaningful and fun.

I had been writing, in some fashion, since my grade school days. I wrote and illustrated my own version of the Big Little books that were popular with kids in the third grade or so. Later, I wrote a family newsletter that I sent out to my cousins and my grandparents. Whether it was pen in hand or pounding away at a manual type writer, I was always writing! It was, however, Mr. Saggio that planted the seeds of confidence and determination that would keep the writing alive for the next forty years.

I remember hating how he wanted us read our stories aloud, often begging my way out of that by finding a cute girl who would mercifully read my material to the class. I was extremely introverted and, looking back, very insecure about what I brought to the table of life. I had always had good grades and my parents were always hearing accolades about my study habits, my ethics, and my behavior. How would that, however, translate into a life and career after high school?

It was, perhaps, too bad that I did not have Mr. Saggio earlier in my high school years because, by the time I took his class, I had decided that writing would not be a part of my immediate future. Growing up in a lower middle class family, chasing your dreams wasn’t stressed as a realistic endeavor. Writing wasn’t seen as a career that would allow you to build a home and support a family. Mr. Saggio was always encouraging us to submit articles or enter competitions that would give us scholarship opportunities. Lacking the confidence, I never did.

He was successful, however, in teaching me that you can write about ANYTHING and EVERYONE has a story to tell that will resonate with SOMEONE. Even if you feel that a certain story has been told before, it has never been told from your unique perspective! Still, I remember feeling inferior in that class as there were several that, like Mr. Saggio, had wonderful senses of humor and their material always received the biggest responses from the class.

My life’s work took me many ways but writing was, unfortunately, not a part of the equation. However, the seeds that Mr. Saggio planted kept the dream alive until I retired. I don’t know where the future will take me but I do know that I have rediscovered my love of writing and relish again the opportunity to sit at a keyboard with a blank screen before me.

If I could see Mr. Saggio again, I would just thank him for planting the seeds that kept the creative juices flowing, finally stoking the confidence to expose my material to an audience. While I always pray that my words resonate with someone in a meaningful way, I really hope that, at some point, I have been or will be a Mr. Saggio for someone else trying to find their way. He authored a small chapter in my life that was more meaningful, to me, than the New York Times best seller he had wanted to write and, at the end of the day, I think he would be happy to know that.