Students pay visit to retired physics teacher over break

As retired physics teacher Bill Drennan drove up to his house on Dec. 28, he may have sensed something was amiss. Once he parked his car in the garage, a group of five figures ran behind his car and began caroling “Oh Rabbit Tree,” a version of the song “Oh Christmas Tree” created by senior Jimmy Zheng.

Zheng and four of his previous physics students paid Drennan a visit over break to deliver a large 18 by 24 inch Christmas card after the topic of the retired teacher came up several times in AP Bio teacher Bob Kucer’s class.

“Early in the year I treated the class like a Drennan-style class where we just had fun,” Zheng said. “One day Kucer suggested we get [Drennan] a big card, so that’s what I did! It’s arguably the biggest card I’ve seen, suitable for someone as high and mighty as Mr. Drennan.”

The card was signed by several students, and was originally supposed to be a birthday card.

“We all thought his birthday was sometime near Christmas, and I swear that’s what Kucer told us, but apparently his birthday is in May or April,” Zheng said, “so our card was just a Christmas card.”

According to Zheng, Drennan took them on a tour of the house after receiving the enormous card.

“It was a grand tour,” Zheng said. “He showed us some of his eight-ball pool moves, including the Massé curve shot, told us many stories about intense encounters with stupid students and neighbors, and we helped him install a new printer so he could print out some letters of recs.”

Drennan’s house was high up in the mountains, according to Zheng, and made the adventure very exciting.

“The whole trip was about two hours long, the most exciting two hours of my break,” Zheng said.