Wager on Teaching, Adventure and Life: Mike Valliant

Wager on Teaching, Adventures and Life by Michael Valliant

I failed 11th-grade English, sleeping through class rather than discussing literature. But I liked the teacher, Mr. Wager at Easton High School, and after summer school, I signed up for his journalism class my senior year. Wager was my first writing teacher. I got an A in the class, stoked my love of writing, and, years later, would find a kindred spirit and good friend for literary and outdoor adventures. So maybe this is a story about a teacher, about legacy, about a good life.

Michael Wager grew up in rural, central New York, on the edge of a big, open tract of farmland, rivers and woods. He and his friends would go down to the Mohawk River to play and explore. He went to the State University of New York at Oswego, on Lake Ontario, where he studied education, English and writing. Teaching wasn’t his first choice of jobs until he got to Hancock, NY, a rural Catskill Mountains town.

“That was the first place that

Michael and Bonnie Wager 41