Many teachers don’t like to work in the district where they live. They want to keep their personal lives separate from their job, and I can understand, though it never bothered me.

I grew up in Groton, mostly in Mystic, and except for the time I was in the Navy and a few years right after that in Ledyard, lived in Mystic. I spent 40 years teaching in Groton, starting at Cutler Junior High, a school I had attended in when it first opened in 1961. My early years teaching at Cutler, beginning in 1974, led to some interesting and humorous experiences.

A ninth grader once showed me her algebra text, Morgan and Paige’s Algebra II. My reaction was, “Are they still using that book?” Indeed they were. In fact, the youngster opened the front cover where students write their names when the book is issued to them, and there was my name. She had the same textbook I used in 1961. I hope she did better in the course than I did! The town certainly got its money’s worth out of that book.

In one seventh grade class the kids were talking about where they lived. One child described her house and it sounded familiar. It was on Library Street, where I had lived up through seventh grade.

We compared notes, and indeed, she was living in the same house that I had lived in when I was her age. When we discussed the interior layout, we realized that her bedroom was the same room that I had occupied. I used to kid her about keeping her room picked up; something my mother rightfully nagged me about.

Sometimes I knew students from outside of school: Christine, for instance. Christine’s mother Pat was a good friend of my sister Patty Dunn. They both lived in Noank and both had daughters. My niece Karen was a little older than Christine.

One day Christine, who I saw frequently at my sister’s house and only occasionally slipped and called me Uncle Bob instead of Mr. Welt, came into class and I complimented her on the pretty dress she was wearing. She grinned and chuckled. I hoped that I hadn’t embarrassed her.

It was later in the day when, as the old expression goes, “the penny dropped,” and I realized why I thought the dress was pretty. I had bought it a couple of years earlier as a Christmas gift for Karen. When she outgrew it, the dress went to Christine.

As my own daughters and now granddaughters know, if it weren’t for hand-me-downs, their wardrobes would be a lot slimmer.

A final coincidence came while I was teaching at Fitch Middle in Poquonnock Bridge. The name of one of the boys in my class looked very familiar to me. As it turned out, as a very young child living on Thames Street, in what was then the Borough of Groton, my next-door neighbors had the same name.

I wondered if they were his grandparents. When parent conferences came in October, I learned that my former neighbors were his great-grandparents. I must admit that made me feel old!

Robert F. Welt is a retired Groton public schools teacher.