Rocket Man: Dennis Erickson

Every time I hear “Rocket Man” by Elton John, I think of my 23-year friendship with Dennis Erickson. Most of the lyrics don’t actually apply to him, but a few certain lines of that song resonate Dennis. Some apply to me. This one, for example: “All this science / I don’t understand.” That’s me. And whenever there was something biological or astronomical I needed to know, I went to Dennis. He’s not afraid of scary creatures…or terrible puns.

My first clear memory of Dennis was preceded by a shrieking group of seventh graders abandoning a hallway ahead of a three-foot long lizard who was menacingly patrolling it, followed by Dennis, guiding said creature with a stick as students ran from its path. As he passed me, he looked up and said simply, “Hall Monitor.”

A few years later, I encountered the largest praying mantis I had ever seen on the sidewalk coming into the school. I carefully scooped it onto a piece of cardboard and stopped by Dennis’s classroom with the specimen, which he promptly scooped up INTO HIS HAND and held up just inches from his face to diagnose the case of insectile gigantism as pregnancy: She was about to lay an egg sac, of the kind I had always seen decorating my back fence but had never known what I was looking at. I then stood there for half an hour and watched, fascinated, this strange birth.

I’ll never forget the smell in the northeast corner of the school when Dennis’s snake, freshly fed had been squeezed too hard by a nervous 7^th grader. It haunts me to this day.

When Carla Money brought in a sealed plastic ice-cream bucket containing the largest and most aggressive wolf spider I’ve ever seen, I had to take it to Dennis for identification. (He put his face uncomfortably close to it, as well.) I then kept it in my classroom all year, feeding it crickets bred in the library terrarium for Dennis’s constantly changing and growing classroom menagerie.

Carla also once brought in a dead rattlesnake she found on a hike in the canyon, which I think Dennis may have included in his collection of gruesome creepy crawlies floating in glass jars around his room. There are rumors, passed on by some of Dennis’s children in essays written for my class, that his science classroom is not the only place he stores such gruesome remains. I think it was Michelle who expressed a fear of actually cooking wrapped items from their freezer because she could never be sure if it was meant for human consumption or for later classroom dissection.

Speaking of children, both of mine enjoyed the same elements of Dennis’s class that I would have had I been lucky enough to be in it. My daughter spent much of her seventh grade year cuddling bunnies and handfeeding rats. My son liked the bug collection assignment (although my wife most assuredly did not). And I liked hearing about all of it and participating in the science of everyday life with them.

These and other stories have made their way into my lesson plans, writing prompts, and classroom conversations over the years, but I’ll have to leave the formal accounting of his numerous accomplishments and awards to others because I can’t get past the profound personal impact he has had on me. Dennis wasn’t just educating his students. His legacy here will run forever in the veins of his colleagues who have been privileged to suffer his puns, teach his children and have theirs taught by him, reap by association the rewards of his passion and excellence, and learn that science isn’t just something that happens in a classroom. It is all around us, waiting to be observed and handled and, most of all, appreciated. 

Every time there is an eclipse or meteor shower or satellite passing over, the faculty gets a reminder from Rocket Man Dennis to watch it or participate with him as he makes pinhole projectors with his students after school. Every time you drive past the school on a Saturday, there is a lone car almost certain to be parked at the northeast corner door. In the song, the Rocket Man says science is “just my job five days a week,” but that doesn’t apply to Dennis, either. He has spent more time in this school than anyone else, and he has given more to it than anyone else. Period.

So, why do I think of Dennis when I hear “Rocket Man” even though so few of the lyrics actually describe him? Because “I think it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘til touchdown brings me around again to find”…another teacher with the dedication and insane, ridiculous, outrageous, amazing commitment to what he does so well. We’ve been taking him for granted for so long that the school and the community will not realize until later how much we miss him when he retires. And the great tragedy of teacher retirements (and life itself) is how quickly we are forgotten as the past becomes the future. But his impact on me will last the rest of my life.

Thank you, Dennis.

“And I think it's gonna be a long long time
'Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no.  I'm a rocket man!
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone…”