I learned today that my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Campbell, passed away. Honestly, the post shocking thing about that was that he was, until recently, still alive. I tend to think of elementary school as somewhere around the Middle Ages, and for anyone who had a role in my education back the to still be alive, thus, becomes unnatural.
Mr. Campbell was 98.
The biggest memory I have of Mr. Campbell, who was an amazing teacher, came from the fifth grade’s trip to Washington, D.C., which was an annual tradition back then. Somewhere in late winter, we started selling oranges and grapefruits to everyone we knew and many whom we didn’t to help finance our individual trips. It was a rite of passage for your garage to smell strongly of citrus in early spring, when the cartons were delivered for distribution.
In Washington, we stayed four to a room, and mine was high in a massive hotel. One night, I was sitting in the seat in the bay window of the room when I was Mr. Campbell, a fellow fifth-grade teacher, and the school janitor, Mr. Finch, walking across the street to the bar/restaurant. We jokingly mentioned our sighting to Mr. Campbell the next morning on the bus. A few minutes later, he came to me and politely asked if I could keep that sighting on the downlow. I happily complied.
I was 10 during that trip. A lot has happened in the past 40 years, and it’s comforting to me that I still have that memory of Mr. Campbell.
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