-Hairy Glass Jaw-

Summer, 2002. A van rumbles through the housing projects in Saint Paul. Hmong, Somali, Hispanic. One of the Somali structures held our target audience; Muslim teenagers the Literacy Council deemed unprepared for reading at the high school level. With nothing to keep them in the community center - this was a voluntary program, and the adults are all out working or unable to be seen outside their homes - we didn't raise the average literacy much that summer. And we probably would not have seen any students, if the project's volunteer hadn't agressively recruited some.

She was a hirsute twenty-something with aspirations toward independent filmmaking. She seemed well suited to working in some of the toughest housing projects in the Cities. When the students whined, she held her ground. When they blustered, she held firm. I thought they loved her, until the last day of the project.

We showed up to find the office abandoned, and the kids gathered in small, shame-faced clusters. It took some prodding, but eventually one boy confessed: They'd argued. It escalated. Then he'd made a remark about her thin moustache.

She'd burst into tears and quit on the spot.

Almost three years later, I still can't get my head around that.