January 11

George Reeves was a huge man, 6 feet 2, weighing 240 pounds. He was my teacher in the fifth grade. In class, he would suddenly shout, “Silence.” Then he would print in big letters on the blackboard the word CAN'T. Turning to the class, he would demand, “And now what shall l do?”

Knowing what he wanted, we chanted back, “Knock the T off the CAN’T.” With a sweeping gesture, he would erase it, leaving the word CAN. Dusting the chalk from his fingers, he would say, “Let that be a lesson to you—you can if you think you can.”