Johnson High Journalism: Green Gordy, Endless Hall Passes, and Petulance

I spend a lot of my time these days writing. Sure, most of it is mindless drivel like commercial social media posts and website advertising copy, but I endeavor to keep up on 'real' writing. (I laugh as I write this part, because I've been working on a somewhat autobiographical novel for over 12 years, and the closest thing I've gotten to finishing it is the table of contents. Which is far from finished.) So it just stands to reason that I often reflect on where this whole writing adventure began.

When did I start writing? I can't pinpoint it, exactly. I do know that I probably began telling stories as soon as I could form a full sentence. "Chatty Cathy" was both my favorite doll as well as the nickname my parents gave me. But I liked putting pen to paper and making words appear. Penmanship in grade school was one of my favorite subjects.

Perhaps it was because I read so much that I felt inspired to tell stories of my own. Books were in abundance at my house and at my grandparents', and it seems as if someone was always reading to me. I learned to read before I started school. And story-telling was considered to be a fine art in my family. So I guess it's no surprise where I gravitated.

Not sure how it happened, but I ended up in Journalism I at Johnson High my junior year. Gordon Grant was the journalism teacher as well as the yearbook and school newspaper advisor. That's Gordy in this picture

with one of my best friends, Cindi Johnson. Mr. Grant was someone I knew before this, because he and his family went to our church (Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran) and he was the church photographer.

(Turns out he was a young just-out-of-teachers' college English teacher who had my love-struck parents in one of his classes back in the mid-50s, but that's another story.)

My relationship with Green Gordy was what you could describe as love/hate. Green Gordy? Backstory here. We referred to him that way because literally everything he wore - shirts, ties, pants, and sport coats - came in various shades of green. The following year our Journalism II class bought him a shirt and tie for his birthday in a different color, but later we found out he was color blind and that's why his wife picked out green things for him, so he didn't have to worry about whether his clothes matched. We meant well, of course, and I think he appreciated the thought.

Of all my teachers over the years, Gordon Grant without a doubt tops my list as both my favorite and my most annoying. He inspired me, he mentored me, but mostly he challenged and pushed me, which is why I think he irritated me. Once he told me I overused particular words and I should consult my thesaurus for some alternatives. I had no idea what a thesaurus was and made the error of asking. "Didn't your parents give you a thesarus? Did they not love you?" Thus began my fascination with synonyms. My Roget's is falling apart these days.

And periodically we got into very public disputes in class. I recall one particular day when I told him I was not registering for Journalism II my senior year because I didn't want to be in his class anymore. He called me petulant. I had no idea what it meant, but after the thesaurus debacle I had no intention of admitting it. But he knew he had me and gloated in it. He also marched down to the guidance office where my aunt presided and had my class selections for the next year altered. Apparently study hall wouldn't challenge me enough. Journalism II it was.

Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Journalism II - along with the production of the yearbook and the school paper - was a big part of my senior year. I had developed a rather casual relationship with Mr. Grant, and he had given me a couple of pads of pre-signed hall passes so that I could get myself and other students out of class to interview them for the paper or get photo shoots for the yearbook done. (Some day I will tell you the story of getting the entire football team out of class for an impromptu touch football game and group interview. A picture from that game did end up in the yearbook, courtesy of Mahmoud Mostafa, our photographer, who I had also graciously gotten out of class. Mr. Grant was used to my somewhat unorthodox ways of doing things, but coming into the classroom to find me perched on a table, surrounded by the football team, apparently crossed the line. That was the one that ended my hall pass privileges.)

Gordy (for some reason he allowed some of us to call him that) pushed me to be a better writer, to take chances, to give everything my best effort. Sometimes I resented it, because I had a tendency to do just enough to get by. For the most part, school came easy to me so why make the extra effort? Because you can do better, that was his standard answer. Sometimes I see his face when I am about to call a piece of writing finished, and then I figure I better give it one more edit and polish it up. If you are a subscriber to my blog, you may notice I regularly revise a post. I re-read them from time and always find typos or phrases that could be stated better.

More than anything that I remember about Mr. Grant is that he believed in me. In fact, my junior year in college he called me to ask about my class schedule and if I could figure out finding time to be his student teacher. He had put in a request for one but there were no funds in the school budget that year. So he worked it out with my college advisor for me to do an independent study for one quarter. For me at the time it was an easy way to get 6 credits. But what I realize now in looking back was the immense gamble he was taking. He was trusting me with his classes. He clearly saw my potential far beyond what I did.

I enjoyed the experience, but it left me with two thoughts: immense respect for teachers, and a total lack of desire to ever go into the profession. But life has a way of handing you ironic and unexpected adventures. There was about a ten-year period where I was in fact a teacher, and not just homeschooling my own kids. I taught 8th grade alegbra, world history, and basic English to a small group of home schoolers as well as beginning Biblical Greek and research paper writing to high school and college level students.

My teaching days are over now, I think, but my writing days are far from it. Thank you, Mr. Grant, for believing in me. If I ever were to write about a super hero, he would wear a tweed sports coat and wield a red pen. His name? Green Gordy.