An Encomium for Uncle Des

I got word this week that an old high school teacher of mine had died. Details are almost non-existent as all I was told was that he was found dead in Ireland. A small cadre of us called him Uncle Des. He taught history at a small school in west-central Wisconsin - a town called Strum. After the 9th grade, my family moved from the north side of Chicago to the boonies of Wisconsin, a bit south of Eau Claire. I ended up in the bounds of the Eleva-Strum school district. I was a city kid and my high school in Chicago had a freshman class of well over a thousand students. (Possibly near 1,200 but I cannot recall.) My new high school had a total student population of around 200. It was culture shock, to say the least. I was the only guy to have long hair and I proudly wore my Jethro Tull t-shirt which made me profoundly unpopular and caused my fellow students to hold me suspiciously. Uncle Des had heard that some kid from Chicago would be starting and he obviously looked over my student records and he knew all about my educational history - the gifted program, several years of Latin, etc. He was excited to have such a student in his class. He sort of took me under his wing. While my fellow students guardedly eyed me, he was immediately open and friendly. It was a good feeling to know that a teacher looked forward to having me in his class. As time wore on, he hired me to paint his house and so I got to know him a bit outside of school as well as being introduced to his wife. He sheltered me and a friend from those horrid u-rah-rah rallies before football games for which attendance was mandatory. I think Uncle Des was 35 when I started at the school so we weren't super-dramatically separated by our ages. We talked about music a lot since we both enjoyed it. He gave me and a couple other students independent studies in Constitutional law.

But history was his thing. Juniors took American history and this allowed Uncle Des to really go into his favorite historical period - the U.S. Civil War. We spent weeks and weeks on it reading texts, watching videos, and seeing slide shows. I recall very well how he grossed out some of the girls in the class with his gruesome descriptions of what passed for field medicine in those days. He showed a surgeons medical kit on a slide and it was wholly composed of saws & blades for amputation. Then he proceeded to describe how the "surgery" was performed with glee. Hacking off limbs sans anesthesia, blood and screaming everywhere - it was funny to watch the girls cringe. But he taught with great enthusiasm generally, not just the Civil War. He loved history and he loved to teach. I recall many times watching him come into the room just before class wringing his hands with a smile on his face and saying, "You are gonna LOVE today's lesson!"

I think his enthusiasm for teaching declined a little bit each year because there were so few students willing to learn. Students were from small towns or farms - they had no interest in history or academics generally, from what I recall. He suffered through constant cries of, "Why do we need to know this stuff?" Always was the relevancy of his discipline called into question and I think it got to him eventually. There were exceptions, to be sure, but most kids didn't give a rats ass about history and they let him know about it. But for those few of us who were interested in history, who were interested in academics, Uncle Des was a treat. He really went out of his way to teach and challenge us. Also in the process of getting to know him, I was given some insight into the politics of the school. Not so much which teachers didn't like each other, although there was a bit of that, but more grading and how students were treated behind the scenes. Uncle Des revealed how he couldn't fail anyone and, believe me, there were many kids who deserved to fail. Uncle Des and an couple other teachers had me grade some tests from other classes and, let me tell you, there were some remarkably ignorant kids there. I recall seeing many true-false and multiple choice questions left blank and some plain stupid answers. I recall grading tests for the remedial physical science class one time. People would answer the biggest gimmes wrong. I don't remember the questions exactly but they were like:

The force that keeps us on the earth instead of floating off into space is:
A) Gravity
B) Electricity
C) Water
D) All of the above

I shit thee not – kids would answer this kind of question wrong. And then there was the time in one of Des' American history classes when a blonde girl asked me with all seriousness why we celebrated the 4th of July. I suppose it wasn't so much the ignorance as we are all ignorant, but it was the total lack of interest in learning that so many students had. And they passed! A diploma from that school was (is?) worthless. The valedictorian got the same piece of paper saying the same thing as did the football player who could barely read and write. Don't get me started on jocks. To be sure, there were some really nice guys in sports, that's not the issue. But they got treated like royalty. Their shit didn't stink. There was one time when a bunch of the football team (which basically had the same kids on it as the basketball team) got busted drinking. Now, this should have meant suspension from athletics but of course they were pardoned. But this wasn't the fault of the students, it was of the community. Virtually no one in the community at-large gave a hoot about academics. It was all about sports and this attitude filtered down to the kids. And the teachers felt pressured to make sure Johnny Starquarterback got at least the minimal GPA to participate in sports even when he or she was completely undeserving of it. I recall talking to many a jock after they received their ACT scores of 8 or 10.(/rant)

Anyway, the real beginning of the end for Uncle Des, however, began several years ago. I don't know all the details but he and his wife got a divorce and he lost custody of his kid. I don't remember his kid's name but I do remember that is was Gaelic. (Uncle Des was Irish and proud of it.) Every so often I would hear tales of him from Dogger or Miss Pamela whose parents still lived up north and were part of the grapevine. He quit or lost his job and turned to alcohol and, apparently, drugs. He ended up on a wanted list for neglect of child support payments. And now he's dead.

It really saddened me to hear of his death despite not having spoken with him for many years. He was a teacher, mentor, and friend who had a great impact on my life. Regardless of his sad final years, I'll always remember him for his great enthusiasm for history and his love of teaching it. But most of all, I will remember him as someone who reached out to a very lonely kid who had found himself in unfamiliar surroundings with no friends and a splintering family.

I came across the following site today and it reminded me of him. I know that, if he were alive today and still teaching, he'd have a grin a mile wide on his face as he fumbled with a computer and projector to show it to his students.

Virtual Gettysburg