About Me — Mike Butler

Truth revealed in Q&A format behind the wedding-crashing teacher

Photo by author (I’m in the Bills jersey)

I’m Batman! I’m a joker. I’m a smoker. I’m a midnight toker.

Okay, I’ll come clean. I’m a sixth-grade English teacher and middle-school basketball coach, who used to be a sports writer at the Antelope Valley Press.

I enjoy writing about my wacky nostalgic childhood memories from the 70s and 80s. Hopefully, you’ve read a few.

Here are 10 fun facts about me:

1. That’s not my birth name: My brother is Scot Butwell, a fellow Medium writer. My name was Butwell, too. Butler isn’t a pen name. I was teased relentlessly as a child, and we didn’t want our kids to be teased, so my wife and I changed our last names. I actually wrote about it here.
2. Was your family military? That’s the second question I get from people after they asked me where I’m from and I tell them we’ve lived in Lexington, Kentucky; Washington, D.C.; Brockport, New York; Fredonia, New York; Murray, Kentucky; Vermillion, South Dakota; and finally Torrance, California. Whew! I’m tired of typing all those places.
3. My dad was a university president: Before passing away in 1987, he was president at CSU Dominquez Hills, which was a life-altering experience and the first memoir I wrote on Medium. You can read it here.