As a 1997 Glastonbury High School graduate I find that I can't remember many of my teachers' faces let alone their names. There are only a few that I recall vividly and think about often. Mr. Connelly is one of them. I have thought about him often as time has gone on since my graduation. He had left an impression on me. Mr. Connelly was a man of passions. When he had a passion for something he showed such an overwhelming variety of emotions as he talked about them. His love of dictionaries, or I should say one dictionary in particular, was so strong he transferred the passion on to me. The man loved The American Heritage Dictionary. One year he would often get excited letting us students know that the next edition was soon to be released. Back then we all thought he was crazy, but now I'm the same way. Just this month, after being fed up that my latest dictionary was over a decade old, I purchased the fifth edition of "the AHD" as he called it. The whole time I was thinking how proud he would be! He also loved the spoken word. I am still impressed when I remember the first time he stopped everything in the middle of class to recite Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" word for word. It was amazing to see. He had so much passion for the language that I am in awe thinking about it to this day. I saw Mr. Connelly a few months ago at Barnes and Noble looking at books. I wanted to go say "hello" and maybe if the conversation went right let him know what a great teacher he was. I am sad to say that I let a stupid fear I had of him possibly not remembering me stop me from telling him what he deserved to hear. It is something that I regret not having done and I believe Mr. Connelly's last lesson he taught me was if that situation arises again to never let that happen again. To his family and everyone else who has been saddened by this unexpected loss I would like to express my condolences. Thank you Mr. Connelly, Kevin Breen P.S.-Please excuse any grammatical or punctuation errors Mr. C!!