Jessica Max Stein

Writing Richard Hunt’s story often unexpectedly yields its own good stories. In summer 2014, I was on Cape Cod interviewing Hunt’s sister Kate when she mentioned their “phenomenal” high school music teacher: Gail Poch. At Northern Valley High School in suburban New Jersey, Poch conducted Hunt in multiple choruses, directed him in school musicals, and hung out with him and his friends as they crowded into Poch’s room during free periods, playing records and rehearsing lines and singing, always singing. Poch wasn’t much older than the students, a beatnik who laughed at their jokes as he smoked endless cigarettes and swigged from a seemingly bottomless thermos of coffee. “I wonder how he is,” Kate said wistfully.

I looked him up the next day, still on the Cape. I figured I’d find an obituary – but instead I found Poch! He lived in the Boston area, where I was already planning to stop on my way home. I dialed him right up. “I’m sorry to bother you, but is this Gail Poch, the music teacher?” It was. “I’m writing Richard Hunt’s biography, and I was wondering if you might be able to meet for an interview…” Continue reading →