Goodbye to a CrazyMan

[kyillee]

So I just read my email from one of many old accounts, and found one from my high school. Letting alums know that Robert Morrish passed away. Cancer wasn't too big a surprise to any of us. I mean, if you smoked more than him, you probably would have died in a week. How many talks were broken up by coughing spasms I will never know... I just can't count that high. But he was something of a legend at the school. Vocab tests, or sentences, and crazy-insane multiple choice sections with 100s of questions and one list of answers to pick from. Short, to the point essays. Not just reading stories, but experiencing them. I'll never forget his re-enacting of Moby Dick. One day it was a butter knife that he actually cut his hand open with in order to baptize the harpoon. Flinging the knife about as he continued the mutterings from the book, blood splattered across the book of a friend as she leaned back, out of its path. "Now it's sacred, and holy!" he cried, and continued in his character. Another, it was the destruction of the compass. Chalk flew across the room, only to allow his large, somewhat overweight and definitely heavy-smoker frame to chase it down, screaming in rage, stomping on it. Yet it wasn't enough. He threw it out the door and down the hall, again finding it and stomping. A few hushed laughs still remained, and so it was out the building. I will never forget him running through pouring rain in his slacks and dress shirt after the chalk. Screaming. Climbing onto one of the quad benches, only so he could jump down on it again, and again, and again. We'd all gathered in the doorway, and as he spun around, we could still feel his rage. No, Ahab's rage, and passion. Rushing out of his way, we scurried back to our seats. He walked in, eyes still burning red. Hair (what little was left) dripping water. His clothes soaked. Stormed to his podium, that he often leaned on while lecturing. Raised his head... and continued class as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. And that was just it. It hadn't. He taught at that little Catholic school for many years. I was one of the last lucky classes to have him for both Junior and Senior English, as had many students before me... including the parents of many in my class! He wasn't the teacher I was closest to while I was there, or the one who's class I always looked forward to. But I won't forget those classes I did have with him, and neither, I know, will the others who experienced them with me.

(read some other memories (this one isn't always working) of him)