Jim Percoco, who has been a Spartan for 31 years, wrote this letter to the teacher who influenced him the most. He asked that it be published in The Oracle.

Dear Neal:

Well, by now you have read the last issue of The Oracle and know that I am to be inducted into the National Teachers’ Hall of Fame. Not too shabby for that hyper-enthusiastic kid you taught history to in 1974 and 1975 at John Jay High School.

As you and I have discussed over the years, as our relationship shifted from teacher/mentor to colleagues and friends, your role in my life was and remains significant.

In recent years my teaching has been deeply influenced by the book, Becoming Who You Are, by James Martin and as someone who helped shape who I have become I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank you for all you have done for and meant to me since I walked across the stage at John Jay in 1975.

That said, the greatest lesson you taught me did not take place in K Building on John Jay’s campus, nor did it take place while I was a teenager. It took place when I was 50 and sitting in the living room of your home in Brookfield, Connecticut.

To be honest, you have taught me most of my adult life. In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks it was to you I turned – calling you in the wake of that event, we shared our reflections on how the America of  September 11, 2001 was so much like the America of the United States in December 1941. Six years later after the shootings at Virginia Tech took the promise of the life of one of my most treasured students, Leslie Sherman, I again called you – you counseled me through my grief and pain and then took the time to pen a letter to me about the important things about teacher/student relationships.

But still your greatest gift did not come to me until March 2008. A month earlier my book, Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments, was released. While I was gratified that the book was published after six years of labor, there was something missing. Working hard to promote and market the book I resorted to every possible trick to ensure that the book received due recognition, particularly with regard to the Holy Grails of book reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, The New York Times and The Washington Post. I sent out press kits that included little metal portrait busts of Lincoln, hoping they would help my book stand out in a flooded Lincoln market.

The book blurbs were sublime, too, and I figured having such folks as David McCullough and James McPherson plugging my work on the dust jacket was a bonus. A month after its release nothing in the world of reviews was breaking. While I should have been enjoying just the idea of having added to the Lincoln cannon I let my ego get in the way and was hosting a private pity party. I was feeling angry and disappointed. I could not fathom how the kudos, on the dust jacket, from sterling and respected historians and writers, could go unnoticed. Then I drove up to see you and present you your copy of my book.

The moment is frozen forever in my mind’s eye and personal time and space. After I signed your book and gave it to you, you chatted amiably away, amazed at the plethora of distinguished book blurbs and in your excitement I felt transported back to John Jay. But then you suddenly stopped. Holding my book in your hands, like a newborn child, you quietly said to me, “Oh, Jim. I am so proud of you!” Any bitterness I had held up in my heart because of lack of reviews suddenly melted away. I no longer needed them, for I had received the greatest review I ever could receive.

That is the kind of man and teacher you have been to me – one who still has the capacity to impart life lessons many years after you wrote on the chalkboard of your classroom.

Neal, you once said to me that you were thankful for having played a “small part” in my journey and success as a teacher. There are no words to convey just how large a role you played and continue to play in my life. Every young person who has traipsed through my classroom at WS has part of the Neal Adams teaching DNA in them; it could be no other way. I would not want it any other way. Your legacy continues to this day and what your famous ancestor, historian and journalist Henry Adams once wrote, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops,” remains an eternal truth.

So there it is Neal; it is as simple and as grace-filled as that. You have helped me to become who I was meant to be and for that I am not only forever in your debt but love you in a way that only a student and a great teacher can understand. Thank you.

Jim Percoco