Building a Fire

You have to remember it was the seventies. We were a generation hot on the heels of the sixties rebellion against the established order. Nixon had brought the world's mightiest government into question. Authority everywhere was suspect. We, the youth were more distrustful than our parents generation, which had been raised in time of war or depression or at least in the stability and conformism of the fifties. Then came JFK's assassination and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Vietnam, Mi Lai, the quiet revolution the FLQ crisis. We were supposed to be jaded and cynical. This is what was happening around us. This was our prologue. Yet we were young, and optimistic. Yes John Kennedy had been killed in Dallas, but not the dream that was Camelot. Not the hope that was Trrudeau-mania. If the world was not perfect it seemed to be a better place. The depression was over, tyrannies had fallen. It still seemed possible that things would be better for our generation than they had been for our Fathers'.

In 1976 I was one year away from graduating High School. Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth Nova Scotia, to be exact. . One year away from going our separate way. To university and college for some, to trade school and work for others. All of us were facing the world of adulthood. We were one year away from leaving the relative comfort of the only world we had ever known, the world of the hallways of public school. Friends, some of whom we had known all our school careers and some even longer would be scattered to the four corners of the earth. With promises to keep in touch, that were well meant but never kept. Gone too would be our teachers. Good riddance to some. Fond farewell to others. But for now there was one year left. Our final year.

There was still the grade twelve courses to choose. I loved history and there was never any doubt that I would take history in grade twelve. The only thing that remained was which teacher I would be assigned. Unlike University, in High school you don't pick your teacher unless they are the only one who teaches that subject. I resigned myself to the fact that I would have whoever was chosen for me. I was fond of my grade eleven history teacher. A man named Gordon Watson. He was different. He made history even more fun. Not just for me I love it anyways. But for other students, students who normally hated the subject because they thought it cold and boring. It was late in the year and I was sitting in the class, secure in the fact that I had an exemption. Soon I would be enjoying a free class while the rest of these plebes studied for exams. Mr. Watson read a list of names. As he read each name he made some snide remark and then bid them each a genuine farewell. The list was alphabetical, so I bided my time as my name is at the end of the alphabet. However, soon he had read the W's and finished. He settled in to the class and proceeded with the course material and what was to be on the exam. I was dumbfounded. I had aced every test, gotten A's on all the assignments. Had I missed something? How in heck had I missed an exemption. My face must have been a mask of confusion and disappointment. I was too shy to put my hand up. My world had screeched to a halt things seemed to be spinning off in space. I looked around the room. The door had long closed after the last of the exemptees had left. Mr. Watson was pacing the center aisle with his notes in hand as he always did. He passed my desk on the way to the back of the sunlit class. He spun on his heel and started back toward the front of the class. I was still reeling. He paused and looked down. A look of devilish glee on his face. A smile from ear to ear. "Oh yeah," he said slyly, motioning over his right shoulder with his thumb "take a hike. You are exempt too!" I shot from my desk as the class howled with laughter. "I couldn't resist it Greg you looked too smug! Have a great summer! You taking 312 in the fall?" "312?" I stopped in mid stride. "Yeah Local studies you'd be perfect for it!" "You bet." I said leaving the class. I was ecstatic, a chance to keep Mr Watson as my teacher was something I couldn't resist.

Local studies was something new a kind of advanced history course based on primary research. "The kind you'll do in College." Mr. Watson said, when I button holed him in the Hall after school. "How can you be so sure I'll go to college?" I asked. "If you don't it'll be a waste, you love this stuff as much as I do!" There could be little doubt that he loved what he did. It oozed from every pore of him. The way his voice rose as he spoke, the way his step quickened as he paced. I was tired of teachers who were putting in time. Using their tenure to max out their sick days. Counting the years to pensioned bliss. There was none of that with Gordon. He didn't just tolerate my questions when I hung back after class. He answered than with questions. "Why not look into this?" he would say suggesting an alternate explanation to my queries. Making me work for an answer he could have given. It might have been a cop out you might think. Why not a straight answer that would have taken a few seconds? Because he knew that someday he wouldn't be there to answer the next question. Teaching is not about filling a young person's head with knowledge. William Butler Yeats put it best "Education is not the filling of a bucket. It is the building of a fire." I think he saw in me a spark of that fire. I think he saw a kindred spirit.
History 312 was magic. We did a survey of the oldest cemetery in Halifax. We visited Cape Breton and went to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. We went down in a coal mine in Glace bay. We went to Fortress Louisbourg. We built a float for the Joseph Howe Parade. For you heathens who were not blessed by being born on the sacred hallowed ground of Nova Scotia, Joe Howe was a Father of Confederation, former Premier of Nova Scotia and the man who won freedom of the press in Canada. We won first prize for that float for the non commercial category. We won because we did it with vigor and elan. Some teachers might have thought that our time would have been better spent on books and reading about history. Not a bit! I remember the jubilation I felt when going through an old copy of one of Joe Howe's columns, I came across the quote than was on the side of our float. "That Nova Scotia shall have a free and unshackled press!"
There was the project I started about the West Nova Scotia Regiment. I found the original roster of the regiment in the archives. My Dad had served in the regiment in the Second World War. I had encountered a roadblock as the archives of the military units are open only to members of the Armed Forces or by special permission. I consulted Mr Watson. "Why not call them?" "I'm researching there past not their present." I said. "Call them ." He said simply. I did. I found out that the unit is now a militia unit. I explained my inquiry to the secretary that answered. "The Commander is at work right now." she explained. I was staggered to think he had a regular job. He called me back the next night. He was delighted to help. He invited me to spend the weekend with them at their headquarters in the Annapolis valley. I had a great weekend playing soldier and eating at the officers mess. I got exclusive access to primary documents, like a receipt the unit had for the first German Soldier captured in WW2 by a Canadian unit. The Colonel was delighted to know that the original roster for the regiment still existed. He had never heard of it. I got him a low light photocopy. Some of the men in the unit had the same names as some of the men on the roster form the 1700's. The fire in me burned a little brighter. "Uncle Gordy" as we called him was delighted with my work. "I told you!" he gloated.
I am writing this by way of telling "Uncle Gordy" thanks. Thanks for lighting a fire in me and so many other students over so many other years. For it is a mighty fire. A fire that will burn down walls of ignorance. A fire that will clear the fields of our minds of old stubble and clear the way for new growth. A fire that cleanses. A fire that radiates and warms. I should have told him in person. I would have if I had run into him on my trips to Nova Scotia over the years. I shouldn't have left it to chance. I should have looked him up and told him face to face. Woulda shoulda coulda... The point is moot now. Uncle Gordy passed away this week. Way too soon. He should have had a long and happy retirement. He deserved it. Yeats was right education is the building of a fire. There are too many teachers out there filling buckets. When you meet one that lights your fire, tell them, please. I know it's too late, but thanks Gordon.

Thanks for the light....