Thanks for sharing and for reminding me to watch my temper and my sometimes overpowering need to be right.
One of the things I learned in AA: our ego is the lens through which we experience the world around us. It takes "that happened" and turns it into "that happened to me." Everyone does it, but the fortunate few remember that it is there, and understand that not everything that we perceive through that lens is real. We are at our worst when we treat that ego-tainted info as gospel truth. Mr. G may have had an epiphany sometime after your 6th grade, or perhaps he was the same man to the last breath he drew. But he was human... may we all be so fortunate that our worst selves are not the ones remembered and replayed when our days are done.