She didn’t know I was looking for her, and probably felt alone, afraid, forgotten, and neglected for the 16 years she spent in a farmer’s barn; but I never forgot, and was looking for her…
I constantly find myself resisting the urge to overextend myself; meaning, get myself into more unnecessary debt by purchasing another classic Porsche 911. I have loved the design ever since I was six years old, and it has been an obsession of mine which has continued to this day. But it wasn’t until I was 18 years old that I first had the pleasure of driving a 911. It was a 1985 Carrera 3.2L in Nutmeg Brown Metallic, and it belonged to my high school Biology II professor, Dr. Moreland.
I remember the first day I met Dr. Moreland like it was only yesterday. I was the first student to enter his high school Biology II classroom on the first day of his new position teaching high school after retirement from 20 years of medical education. I said “professor” in the paragraph above rather than “teacher” because he was so much more than a biology teacher, a title which could be given to anyone who was brave enough to stand in front of a class of teenagers and present the material from a biology textbook. He was different. He drew us in. He was a professor by title, pedigree, and by action. He loved his job and his students, and it showed.
He was an anatomist, trained under the rigorous and careful tutelage of the icon of American anatomy, Dr. James Mayo Goss, the long-time mid-to-late 20th century editor of the Gray’s Anatomy American Edition. He graduated from LSU New Orleans with his PhD just before he taught my Father anatomy in his freshman year at LSU Medical School, New Orleans in 1967. To me, however, in the first week of August 1987, as a new student at Captain Shreve High School, he was just an old man with big ears who looked like he would be just another boring Biology II teacher, and probably a demanding one at that.
My first impression was that he had a very serious look about him that morning, sitting at the front of the empty classroom, wearing a suit and tie, with his legs crossed and a clipboard in his lap. He asked my name as I sheepishly sat down in one of the empty seats which filled his tidy classroom, and he checked a mark beside it on a list of expected students he had neatly aligned on his clipboard. I had transferred in my junior year from private to public high school and because newly orienting students came a day ahead of the returning students and was the only new student in that first period Biology II class, I was the first student he met. We sat for the few minutes of the abbreviated class schedule that day and though I don't remember all of what was said, it was said with apprehension from my perspective, I'm sure. In retrospect, I must honestly say that even after a life of only private school education up until that moment, I don’t think I had ever seen a teacher in a suit and tie and it made me nervous; but he was cool as a cucumber and acted more like he was already one of my best friends.
Anyone who knew Dr. Moreland, known as Doc to his students and friends alike, will know he was almost immediately able to put my mind at ease by his kind and humorous demeaner. He started almost immediately by asking me if my father was, by chance, a physician, because he remembered a favorite student of his with my name from twenty years prior! He even described him so well from memory that I knew he was remembering my Dad. My defenses were lowered from that moment on, and it wasn’t long after that day, I am certain, that he became my new favorite teacher of all time. And what was even better, I soon discovered he was the one driving the little brown 911 to school every morning, parking it in the center of the teacher’s row in front of the school entrance, under one of the large oak trees.
Doc was my Biology II professor that year, but in the coming years he became a mentor and a life-long friend and essentially an extended family member until his death Feb 6th 2019. I first started house-sitting for him when he went out of town in my senior year, and that is about the time he first let me drive my dream car. I was amazed at how powerful the engine was when the clutch engaged, even if not engaged smoothly. It was hard to stall and it was also quicker than any car I had ever driven, which is funny now, because I am positive my Ford F250 Turbo Diesel could beat it in a drag race now. I was enamored by the precision and craftsmanship, even in such details as how securely the door closed, and the distinctive “thud” it made when doing so.
I first drove that car in 1988, as my memory serves me, and continued to drive it periodically whenever he would let me, until he sold it to a prior student of his who lived in Ohio in about 1993, much to my dismay. I wouldn’t see it again for nearly thirty years.
Check back for my next blog chapter to hear the rest of the love story…
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