"Richard, I'm certain i'll read about you in the newspaper someday. Either you'll have won a nobel prize, or you'll have blown yourself up."

That's what he wrote in my yearbook on the last day of class.

My tenth-grade biology teacher screamed at me during the first day of class. He was threatening to send students to the office and had already pegged me as the class rabble-rouser.

"Do you want to start the exodus?!" he boomed.

I don't remember much about that class, or Mr. Weber, or the subject of biology.

Six years later, it turns out he is retired and a painter, and has works in the same gallery as my mother. She wanted me to come to one of the art shows and say hi to him, but i couldn't think of what we would say to each other.

After he handed me my yearbook back, i never saw him again.