In New York City, where I grew up, the superintendent was the guy who fixed the plumbing or the boiler and twisted his face when you told him there was a dead rat inside your radiator. In my building, it was a surly guy named Eddie who had six children and sometimes argued with the oldest ones in the lobby or stood by himself in front of the rusty iron front door of the building puffing a cigar and drinking out of a brown paper bag.
In L.A. where I now live, the superintendent runs the school district. Those of us who teach the students of this city don't see very much of our super in person. We see his name on all the letters and memos and fax cover sheets and emails he may or may not actually write himself. He has a television show on the LAUSD channel that not many people watch (a colleague of mine used to make students watch it while they served detention--until some parents complained that it was unreasonably harsh punishment).
When I joined LAUSD back in the last century, the super was a guy named Sid Thompson. The only
