Gone

  I read his obituary today.  I had been thinking of him just the other day when I was going through some old papers in an endless pursuit of  trying to organize.  I came across some  pictures of myself, back at a time when I didn't shy away from the camera.  I was remembering that one of my fellow teachers, back when the world was new, would comment that I looked like Ann Blyth.  I believed he meant it as a compliment, though the actress had been out of the spotlight for some time, and I wasn't sure how attractive she was considered.  Now I realize he made the comparison based on ethnic heritage. He was Irish, with a complexion so fair that a friend and fellow teacher used to say he looked pink, added to by the fact that he was immaculately groomed. 
    His obituary made no mention of the year or two that he taught at HVC, so I don't imagine he would have had any memory at all of anybody or anything  that was part of that experience. But my mind holds on to certain bits and pieces of the past in vivid detail.  I can picture the man as he was then, can see him clearly, hear his voice.  He taught English as did I.  We each had a class of ninth graders, and his room was just a few doors down from mine.  I should mention that he was very well educated and intellectual, proficient in several languages.  The ninth grade text included the poem, "The Highwayman"by Alfred Noyes, which I had been teaching for several years by then. 
    On a day when I had a prep period and he was teaching, I heard his voice instructing the class that the author of the poem was Alfred Noyes, but he pronounced it Alfred "Noi-yea."  I was appalled because I'd always pronounced the name "Noise."   I felt uneducated and provincial, wondering how I was going to undo the gaffe I'd made.  I could conceivably correct it for my current classes, but not for the years before.  My insecurity was relieved when I later found out I was correct.  Of course, I never told him, so all those students in his succeeding classes would hear an English author having his name pronounced with a French accent.  Oh, the horror!  Anyway, he left high school teaching and went on to the college level, so he presumably had no more interaction with "The Highwayman,"  "when the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas."