A Melancholy Post

My father called me today to let me know that one of his colleagues at the high school, Mr. Morris, had passed away suddenly.

Though it was shocking, and certainly bad news, I can't say I was deeply saddened. Even though Mr. Morris was one of my favorite teachers in high school, I hadn't thought much about him in the last several years. I had seen him a few times since graduation, because I would visit the high school to say hello to my dad, or during the summer, to help Dad inventory textbooks and get them stored safely beyond the reach of the summer school kids. I'd see Mr. Morris, we'd say hello to each other, he might ask what I was up to, I'd do the same, and that was it. Still, his passing has had me thinking about a few things.

My own mortality for one, though I find myself thinking about that more all the time. usually though it's because I'm getting older, and I still haven't locked down a permanent job in my field, and so I feel like a bum. Now I'm thinking about how the way I've lived my life over the years may be starting to add up, and what could be going on inside. There's also my dad to consider. He's older than Mr. Morris, and Mr. Morris passed away of a heart attack, so it makes me worry for my dad. He's had health issues in the past, though they've mostly been back-related, but the family does have history of circulatory issues. My grandfather died of a stroke, I believe, or a heart attack, and my uncle had two aneurysms, the second having killed him. I think my father's taken better care of himself than those two, certainly smoked and drank less, but the concern is still there for me.

The other thing I've been trying to do is remember some good memories with Mr. Morris. I remember than in 10th grade, he was a student teacher in my biology class, and taught the organismal and ecological biology sections of the class. I know I considered him a godsend compared to the regular teacher, who could be friendly before class, but was very unpleasant once the bell rang. His more pleasant demeanor, combined with his teaching parts of biology I was actual interested in, is probably what kept me from losing interest in biology.

The next year he was a full-fledged teacher, and he even had his own class, Astronomy/Earth Processes, and I was part of his first class. It was the only science class I took in high school I actually enjoyed. Mr. Morris didn't try and be the cool teacher, but he wasn't a hardass when it wasn't required. He seemed to know how to strike that balance between being understanding when it was called for, and not putting up with malarkey when people screwing around.

You could tell he was still learning, though. The class was supposed to be split evenly between Astronomy and Earth Processes, but we didn't wrap up astronomy until late in the 3rd quarter, at the earliest. Also, since he was teaching the astronomy section in the school's planetarium, he wanted to take advantage of the resource. So the big project was to work in pairs and create a presentation which would tell a myth surrounding some constellations, but also describe some astronomical features (so my partner Gavin and I covered Scorpio and Orion, and nebulae and globular clusters, since those were present in the two constellations). You had to decide on the topics, seek out the slides that would go in the projector, and program the computer so that the slides would appear in the proper order, and for the proper amount of time. I know ours was a struggle because Gavin was MIA for weeks at a time, and it took me a long time to figure out how to set up the program (I had always thought Gavin was really sick, but in talking to him during a chance meeting years later, he told me he had just been skipping school and getting drunk. Huh.)

The problem was (in addition to probably giving us too much time, so students tended to dick around and chat, waiting until the last minute), Morris let the students grade each other, in addition to grading them himself. As far as I know, all the students gave each other "A"s. It was probably done at least partially so the we'd have to pay attention during the shows, but it wasn't really effective for helping to evaluate the presentations. Still, he was learning, and the desire was there, and I looked forward to that class more than any other I had that year. Maybe more than any class I had any year of high school.