Ava Cashman: What is your favorite restaurant in West Hartford?
Andy Krugman: The crazy thing is when I was growing up there were very few restaurants in West Hartford – almost none. If you wanted to eat you went to Hartford. If you wanted to eat out, it was a big deal. West Hartford Center was all small businesses and retail. Literally, there was one restaurant in all of West Hartford Center. So now it’s exploded. My favorite restaurant would be Max Burger. It’s a good go-to.
AC: That’s a good call! Favorite TV show?
AK: Does it have to be current?
AC: It can be anything.
AK: The Sopranos.
AC: What’s a quote that you live by?
AK: I know I had a quote in my yearbook, it was something to the effect of “You only live once, but if you live right once, it’s enough.”
AC: Favorite KO tradition?
AK: I like the KITs, if you want to call that a traditional tournament, I would say that’s a great tradition.
AC: If you could only take three things to a desert island, what would you bring?
AK: I would bring my wife. I would not torture my children by bringing them, they have their own lives. I would bring some good books to read. I’m not going to say DVDs – electronics are useless on a desert island. So I’d say good books and a deck of cards.
AC: Who’s your favorite musician, band, or recording artist?
AK: Billy Joel is way up there. I would say Genesis is a band I like, I like Peter Gabriel solo. But Billy Joel is a hard one not to go to.
AC: What is your favorite thing to do on a day off from school?
AK: That depends. It depends whether it’s warm outside, cold outside. If it’s warm enough to go fishing somewhere, I would do that. Sometimes it’s just watching a good movie that I’ve already seen 100 times. Just reading, relaxing.
AC: What’s one item in your office or your classroom that you can’t live without?
AK: First of all, my desk is a mess. I just like seeing some of the pictures or things that I’ve received from students, it could be something in a frame. Just those little little reminders. Or pictures of my family.
AC: If you could have a walk-up song play every time you entered a room, what would you pick?
AK: It’s funny you mentioned this because I was talking about how it used to be that the captains of the basketball team, they got to choose the music that we warmed up to. I think the song “Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen. I just think that’s a great tune.
AC: That would be such a good walk-up song. And then what’s your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?
AK: I’m not a huge world traveler, but I visited a good friend of mine with about five other people in London. I was with friends, and it was only a few days – I was there like three days. But that was a blast, it’s a neat city. I didn’t see all of it, and I’m not a huge world traveler, but that I enjoyed.
AC: History or not, if you could teach a class on anything at KO what would it be?
AK: If I’m going way off the randomness, it would be a class about fantasy football. Both the business side of it, the cultural and social impact, obviously just the way it’s changed the way people watch football. The obsession with it, my ineptitude, my frustrations, that would be sort of a cool thing to see what direction that took us in. Without, by the way, promoting gambling. In all seriousness, I worry about, especially teenage boys, and the money gambling part. To me, fantasy football is about rivalries with my friends and bragging rights. It doesn’t matter whether we’re playing for nothing or a dollar. It doesn’t matter, it’s just that you want the bragging rights. But also to use that, if I was to teach a class, also to share the warnings about gambling and things like online gambling sites. But, fantasy football, that’d be that’d be a fun thing to teach. Now, history-wise, if I could teach an elective about Lincoln, which is where I’ve done a fair amount of reading and studying, that would be a fun sort of quarter elective or semester elective.
AC: From your time as a KO student to now teaching at KO, what’s an aspect of the school that has changed the most over this time?
AK: That one I can answer very quickly. I think it is a warmer, kinder place. It’s a little bit smaller student population-wise; but also, in terms of what students are celebrated for or recognized for or embraced for, is much more varied and healthy. I really do, I think it’s a kinder place. The senior green, they used to have “green raids,” and kids used to get strung up. A lot of alums look back and say, “Oh, those were the days!” I was more than happy to see that go. I was never a fan of it, quite frankly – in part because I got strung up when I didn’t even run the green. It wasn’t painful, just embarrassing. But, nonetheless, I’m not upset that that has gone by the wayside. And then some obvious ones like the dress code – that’s an obvious one. If you get an alum who hasn’t been back in 40 years or 35 years, and they walked around school, they’d be like, “What’s the special dress down day?” No, that’s every day.
AC: What’s your favorite season and why?
AK: Oh, summer, I like warm weather, you can do a lot of stuff outside. I often associate summer with my time up in New Hampshire at a summer camp where I’ve worked and been a camper and a counselor and a director. Summer’s great, it’s the best. You can not beat it. Oh, and there’s no correcting!
AC: When I took Political Ideology with you, it was an election year. So, as your middle school students are growing up and eventually going to be future voters and citizens in this chaotic political climate, what message or advice do you hope to impart upon them?
AK: Just engage in conversations and do your best to be civil. Agree to disagree, it’s not always a question, as I say, of “right or wrong,” it’s a question, sometimes, of “right or left?” I would say, try to be as open-minded as possible, there’s not always one view or one solution, and that’s what I would encourage people to do.
AC: That’s great advice. I remember our class, it was totally opposite sides of the political spectrum. We had some really conservative kids, some really liberal. It was so interesting
AK: And that makes for a good class. If you think about when you have the people who serve as sort of foils for each other, it makes the class. That contrast actually highlights the differences that are out there. And quite frankly, there’s nothing saying that that conservative kid in the class might not grow up to become an uber-liberal, or that liberal kid who had all these views grows up and all of a sudden becomes a staunch conservative. You just don’t know. It’s a moving target, because we change.
AC: And it made such great conversation, we learned so much.
What celebrity, historical figure, or fictional character would you want to be best friends with?
AK: Lincoln would be fascinating because he was a great storyteller. Really funny, clever, smart, thoughtful, the whole bit – not perfect. I just wouldn’t go to the theater with him. [He said jokingly] Harrison Ford, both the actor and some of his characters, he’s just got that “it factor.”
AC: Who is your favorite author or what is your favorite book that you’ve read?
AK: David McCullough is a historian. He died about three or four years ago, but he was sort of America’s historian. His works are so good, so I enjoy reading him. He writes nonfiction. He writes history, but it reads like fiction. It reads like a story. I read mostly nonfiction. I tend to read more history-related stuff. Doris Kearns Goodwin is another historian that I enjoy reading almost all her work. I just started reading a couple of John Grisham books, like “The Firm,” but lighter reads.
AC: Do you have any favorite memories, either in recent years or in the past, from classes that you’ve taught?
AK: It’s just that every day is different. You can teach the same course, the same lesson, to four different groups, and it could go in four different directions. You just don’t know. If you go through a class, and there isn’t at least one moment of laughter, then it’s been a pretty tough class. But a specific memory? Yeah, I’ll tell you, it’s a little bit embarrassing. Gosh, this was my first five years of teaching. In my class, kids are good, kids behaved, it’s not a big deal. But there was one class, they were just squirrely, people talking. I was frustrated with it. So then, I leave, – this was the old Middle School – I walk across to my office. My office mate, she was great, she was at the school for a few years, she’s like, “Hey, Krugs, your zipper’s down.” And I’m like, “Oh, thanks!” And then I’m like “Oh…that’s why. No one was saying anything and I was teaching the whole class walking around with my fly down. So what happened was, I was teaching a class right after that. If I hadn’t walked into my office, and she hadn’t said something, I would’ve taught another class like that. So, I was like “Thank you so much,” and then I go down to the lunch room, and as I’m walking down this long hallway, I could see the kids from the class and they’re all talking. And I walk up, and I’m like “Yes, it’s been taken care of. Why didn’t you say anything?” And they go, “We didn’t want to embarrass you.” And I said, “So you decided not to say anything so that I could continually be embarrassing myself for the next two classes?” But I totally got the fact that, for a kid, it’s embarrassing, it’s awkward. But I remember that like it was yesterday! It was one of my earliest teaching memories, it was really funny.
AK: It’s interesting, as teachers, it’s not like we remember the exact grade a kid gets in our class. I can’t tell you the averages for my students over the years. But I can tell you who made a positive impact and who was kind, caring, thoughtful. That is the legacy people leave behind.
AC: What’s the best advice you would give to your high school self?\
AK: It would probably be try to enjoy learning for learning’s sake rather than being stressed about grades. Because I had my own insecurities. I was not a kid who just [snaps fingers] got A’s. I worked really hard to get my B’s and B pluses and, you know, A minuses were like unicorns. But, I would spend so much time worrying about being ready for the test. I spent less time actually thinking about what I was learning. So it would be more just to enjoy learning for learning’s sake. But that’s easier said than done.
