Sing, Muse, of wrath and men and memories

This week I started the World Literature class I am teaching for the community college at the base. For the last two weeks, I have been rereading Gilgamesh, Genesis, and Homer.  Why don't I do this more often?


I had forgotten how good Homer is. Maybe it’s the Stanley Lombardo translation of the Iliad that seems more vivid this time around; maybe it’s my perspective as a middle-aged mother that makes the relationships seem more poignant, the violence more grotesque, the losses more severe. Maybe being in the middle of the journey, longing for home, gives me more empathy for Odysseus’ trials.


While reading, I had a flashback to seventh grade. Over a period of 3-4-5? weeks, our social studies teacher narrated the Iliad and the Odyssey to us, a bunch of 12 year olds. He didn’t read it, and he didn’t refer to a stack of notes. Now I wonder how much he had memorized, if he was telling this story to 6 or 7 times a day to classrooms of 7th graders, year after year. He was a grandpa when I had him as a teacher, so he must have been telling the story for 20 some years prior. And he taught the same stories to my younger brother 10 years later. He spent a lot of time with Homer.

Now I don’t remember the details of what he told. But enough of what he said stuck, so I was familiar with the narrative thread when I finally read the two epics for myself in college.


But it’s just now, a couple decades+ later, that I realize the small miracle of what this teacher did. He never had to reprimand the class. He had a quiet voice that held that room of pubescent preteens enthralled. No one interrupted. (Of course, probably some kids napped). Unlike a high school social studies teacher whose class exploded daily in chaos, this teacher had cast a spell. For fifty minutes a day he taught us what it was like to sit at the feet of a bard.


This same teacher was also my first track coach. He encouraged me to run and win. And he introduced me to my second track coach, who helped me earn a scholarship to a school where I could study the great books. (And get my MRS.)


I called my mom to see if she knew whether or not this teacher is still alive. Since my parents moved from the small town where we went to school to a smaller town, she didn’t know any news about him.  I’m not sure whether to send him a thank you note or invoke his spirit as I go to class tonight.