“That ‘do what you’ll love and you’ll never work’ quote? Whoever said that had a silver spoon coming out of their eyehole.”

Neal had a hilarious view on life, and his insistence that not everyone is going to love their job has always been an important reality check for me. The man lived and breathed the study of the English language; he was certainly born to teach passionate high school kids Shakespeare. And yet he constantly found frustrations with his job. In his mind, those frustrations colored a brighter, stronger picture of the world. They were not aggravations to be brought down by, but rather circumstances to appreciate the highs of the job and of life. It is not imperative to always love your job, but it is important to recognize the true positives of life when you get them. Neal died about 5 years ago, and I’m always grateful that I got the chance to tell him how much he meant to me before he did.