No,
this blog isn’t about the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. OK, maybe it is, but only in a peripheral way. It’s about the teacher who sat at the front
of the class, and read the book to his largely disinterested students.
Reverend
G. Lewis Wright.
I
called him Mr. Wright. My younger
brother called him Professor Wright. I
had no idea that he was a minister. I
was in the 10th grade, pretty much self-centered (like most teens),
and bored out of my skull as Mr. Wright droned on and on about Jay Gatsby.
So, I used his second period class
as a glorified study hall. My best
friend Jim shared the class with me, and he had Ms. Echols’ social studies
class during first period; I had the same class third period. I would quiz Jim on what happened during his class,
getting detailed notes about pop quizzes, etc.
It was a good arrangement for me. I got an A in Mrs. Echols’ class; Jim
got a C.
But, I digress.
I guess that something must have
sunk in because I somehow got an A in Mr. Wright’s class, and never really
thought about the man again until Saturday.
The house was in a fairly
affluent part of Macon, close to my alma mater, Northeast High School, and the
estate sale sign beckoned as Ella and I pulled up. You know, true estate sales are fairly
intimate. You get a peek into someone
else’s life, and as I walked in and saw the bookcases full of literature and
religious books, I should have known, or at least figured out, that the owner,
or former owner as the case may be, was a teacher.
The shelf full of Northeast High
School yearbooks should have been a clue as well.
I didn’t, though. I was too focused on what I could scavenge
from the house. Self-centeredness never really goes away, does it?
As I wandered into one of the
bedrooms, I came face to face, figuratively, with a picture of Mr. Wright. I was …
honestly, I don’t know what I was, other than mad at myself because I couldn’t
remember his name. I could remember
exactly where I sat in his class, and had a clear mental image of him sitting
on his stool reading, including the look on his face and the sound of his
voice. But I could not remember his name.
Oh, the picture had a price tag
of $10, but Saturday was half-price day.
Yep, all of his treasured family photos were 50 percent off.
I asked a sale worker for his
name, and kicked myself when they told me.
Of course, it was Mr. Wright. Why
hadn’t I remembered? Of course, it had
been 37 years, so I deserve some slack, don’t I?
Armed with that bit of knowledge,
and despite protests from Ella that we needed to get a move on, I made a
circuit through his house again, really looking at things, and trying to build
a memory of the man who spent 35 years of his life trying to teach
unappreciative students.
I learned that he liked music,
especially classical. He had a large
collection of Reader’s Digest collections, including books and CDs. He had a fair amount of travel DVDs. He also was an amateur photographer, with a
large collection of old cameras. He also
had taken, over the years, hundreds of photos with his students, all of which
could be had for a bargain basement price on that day.
As Ella and I got to our van, I
decided that I wanted to snap a picture of that framed photograph of Mr.
Wright. I hurriedly walked back up the
hill to the house, only to discover that the photograph had been taken off the
wall.
I was disappointed, but as I left
the house, I hoped that both the photograph and Mr. Wright himself were in a
better place.
RIP, Mr. Wright (1933-2015).
