One of my favorite memories is from Paris, the Musee L’Orangerie, going there with my friend Steve Jacobson. We walked into a room with four walls of Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies.”

Two weeks before he died, Steve was still teaching. He came into my empty classroom and told me that that day was his last day. He had resigned for medical reasons. I didn’t handle it very well. A hug was appropriate, but I’m not a man hugger. Steve said, “We’re a couple of Norwegian bachelors, aren’t we?” So I try to remember the happy day in the Musee L’Orangerie.

Jim Krotzman is a retired English teacher at Watertown (WI) High School. He is a struggling haiku poet and fisherman.