I really hope he never googles his last name, because there are like, ten of my blog entries that come up. Sort of embarrassing.
Anyway, I never posted that interview I did with him in the beginning of the year. WELL... HERE IT IS:
“Oh, is that today? Right now?” Mr. Hosbond asks, and I nod, following him into his room. He situates himself in his chair, propping his right ankle up on his left leg. I notice he’s wearing green argyle socks, despite the fact that his shirt is orange and plaid. The room was still the same as I remember, smelling faintly of something that wasn’t Fairfield High School; it was a bit like fresh air and cinnamon. The desks were arranged in the same way, and there were still art posters covering the walls. On the bulletin board is an amateur watercolor of him, surrounded by a bunch of rudimentary cats.
“Oh, you kept Brittani’s watercolor!” I exclaim, remembering how last year the bulletin board was littered with our drawings and pictures of cats. Our friend Beyana Magoon even went as far as to print off many pictures of his face in various bodies, one of which featured the same picture of Hosbond on every one of the pussycat doll’s necks. I smiled to myself, remembering his slight amusement before he ripped it from the wall and tossed it in the trash.
The Hosbond before me has the same expression on his face.
“I keep the rest of the stuff in a special drawer,” he says, gesturing to the right, where another desk held piles upon piles of papers and personal things. I flip through my notebook until I come upon the right page.
“Should I just talk? A lot?” He asks airily.
“Most of my questions are fairly normal, don’t worry,” I reply, thinking of what Brittani had told me to ask (the most socially acceptable of which were “When did he discover his love for argyle?” and “Will he somehow incorporate argyle into his wedding tux?”).
Yes, as most of you know, Mr. Hosbond is engaged. He and his fiancée plan to be wed next summer, but he eagerly confesses some of his earlier plans.
“We’re thinking about, for our wedding photos, getting an old tux and an old wedding dress, like from the Bargain Box,” he begins, “and then going out to the lake and taking pictures in the cattails... Some people would think that’s weird, all dirty and wet.” He laughs. Just like the photos, he and his fiancée plan on having a natural, non-traditional wedding outdoors.
Unlike most of us, Mr. Hosbond hasn’t always lived in Fairfield. He moved here when he was fresh out of college, where his original intent was to become an engineer.
“But then I realized… I don’t really like calculus as much as the next guy.” He remembered how his happiest memories from High School were in speech, drama, or the English classroom, and decided to become a teacher.
“Engineering equals bad. Happiness equals good,” he says, still in his breezy manner of amusement.
While going to college, Hosbond worked in a restaurant—the same one he had been working in since the age of fourteen. But after seven years of this, he decided to work in, of all places, a casino.
“I have so many, like, awesome memories from that,” he says, “working with people and dirty money… I’d be like, ‘hey, I’m looking at a million dollars right now!’ it was unreal.”
But currently, Hosbond is in the middle of his ninth year as a teacher. He teaches English 9, Composition, and speech classes—and, on top of that, drama activities. He urges me to be “politically correct”, stating that he coaches speech, mime, musical theater, and general acting. The Theater department holds try outs in October, the week after the fall play. “Certain kids are like trading cards,” he says, referring to how the selection process works, “I like to befriend them on the outside so they’ll try for only my divisions.” He laughs again.
But for an ordinary teacher, Hosbond gets an unusual amount of attention outside of school. “I feel like I’m becoming famous like Kurt Cobain,” he jokes, “at the mercy of all my fans. Once I was at the movie theater, and someone shouted, ‘HOSBOND’S HERE!’ then there was wild cheering and a standing ovation, during the previews… [My fiancée] was just like, ‘Holy crap, this is crazy’. I’m like a rock star.” He suspects the reason his students are so fond of him is that he connects with them on a more personal level than most teachers.
“Otherwise groups of girls wouldn’t find your house and chalk cats into your driveway,” I joke, referring to a particularly interesting afternoon I spent with a couple of my aforementioned friends.
“Yeah, it happens every year… I like it. Fun personal attention to my property...” I can’t tell if his voice it laden with sarcasm or delight, but he continues, “There used to be this one kid who would show up at three AM every night, saying, ‘I figured you’d be up’. I’d be like, ‘uh… go away’.”
Mr. Hosbond would also like the general public to know that he’s not a hateful person (“I get these calls from angry parents…”), and that he’s attained many of the goals he set out to: he’s been a “rock star”, he’s met famous people and he’s created and sold stuff (“I still have to publish this writing…”). Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “also, grey cats are the best animal on the planet.”
