My father, Al Feldstein, started teaching at Fairfield Elementary School in 1957. Dwight Eisenhower was president, Mickey Mantle played centerfield for the Yankees, and Johnny Carson was still five years away from hosting the Tonight Show. There were no computers, iPods, DVDs, or microwaves. He will be retiring this year in June, nine presidents and 49 years later.

He worked as long as he did, when so many others of his generation had moved on, because of the immense joy and fulfillment he received from his work. As a child, I would listen to him excitedly describe a play he was writing and producing with the children or a proposed trip to Manhattan to partake in some cultural delight. He had an unending array of novel and creative devices at his disposal. As I watched from near and afar, each school year presented itself as odyssey of the spirit that took him wherever it might lead with the only guiding oar the betterment of those he taught.

Difficult children were not problems, but challenges to be solved. Fellow teachers were friends and colleagues. He could be tough with tests; he demanded a lot. Yet I would often hear of a returning student telling him how much easier junior high school and high school were for them because of the discipline learned in his classroom.

Through the years, I saw the suits and ties become bell-bottoms and sideburns. The 1970s silk shirts transformed into the business casual. Despite these changes one thing remained always and unflaggingly constant - his enthusiasm for his students.

I always wished I could have had a teacher like my father. My kids, who recently observed their grandfather teaching said the same thing. My father did not just have my sister and me as his kids. He had the whole Fairfield community, and I am proud to have had the opportunity to share him.

Stuart Feldstein