Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.
I have been a teacher for eight years now. Every year there are students who impact my life in some way, and some do this more than others. I know, though, that no one will ever have the same kind of effect on me as Ponyboy Curtis.
Not only was Ponyboy a student in my class four years ago, but in the years since then, and especially since he's graduated, he's become a friend. His writing impressed me so much the year that I taught him that I couldn't help but push him to get some of it published, and I was completely validated when our local publishing houses thought as highly of his work as I did. I was even more gratified, though, when Pony went to college… and decided to major in English. We kept in touch through letters and the occasional phone call when he was on vacation and wanted to get together for lunch. I couldn't have been happier to see how much he'd grown up, and I didn't know if he knew just how much I had come to appreciate him.
I never thought, though, that his sophomore year in college would be a repeat of his sophomore year in high school … or that I'd have the chance to prove it…