Every time I see a misplaced apostrophe, I think of him.
Gil Wilson, my seventh-grade English teacher, made me absolutely obsessive about apostrophes — and spelling and grammar and punctuation — and he is the reason I am writing this column today, as I grieve his death.
I had two teachers who shaped my life. The first was my first-grade teacher at New Bedford Elementary School, Charlotte Wallace. She took a backward, scared-to-death girl whose family had just moved into the district and made her feel welcome and loved.
My parents were both wonderful, but they were older than just about everyone else’s and, thus, never really worked with me like most kids’ parents did. I didn’t know how to print my name when I got to school, and Mrs. Wallace recognized it right away. By the end of first week, I had it down pat. Later in the year, I remember going into the bathroom and crying because I was the only first-grader who did not know the words to all the Christmas carols. Classmates were making fun and I was traumatized. Mrs. Wallace asked me to stay in during recess and she gave me sheets of paper with all the words and sang them with me. I was so grateful.
Then came Mr. Wilson. I already had developed an affinity for English and reading and spelling by the time I got to his class at Wilmington Junior-Senior High School. He and I bonded instantly. He had wonderful twinkling eyes and he was not afraid to admit his love of grammar, God or the Pittsburgh Pirates.
There was no bigger Pirates fan at that time than me, I could recite every players’ statistics through his entire career. My older brother turned me on to the Pirates when I was about 5 years old and he and I would sit on a plastic-covered glider in our breezeway late at night and watch games on an old black-and-white television. I listened to every Pirates game that wasn’t on TV on a little silver and black transistor radio that my dad gave me.
Mr. Wilson and I spent many hours discussing the Pirates before, during and after class. When the Buccos played in the 1971 playoffs and World Series, he let me bring my transistor radio to class and listen to Bob Prince’s calls with earphones (many of the games were played during the day at that time), provided I gave frequent updates. When it got down to the wire against the Orioles, the entire class was allowed to listen.
A CLASS ACT
One of my favorite activities in Mr. Wilson’s class was diagramming sentences on the big, green blackboard behind his desk. I would always wave my hand when he asked who wanted to go first. I have been amazed on many occasions in my professional life when I’ve asked obviously English-challenged writing hopefuls if they ever diagrammed a sentence. The answer is always no. They don’t do that in schools anymore, apparently, and I can honestly say that’s where I learned subject and verb agreement, the difference between an adjective and an adverb and that a singular noun takes a singular pronoun.
And those darned apostrophes. I wonder sometimes if anyone knows where to put an apostrophe these days. It is the source of my greatest consternation in life. Co-worker Pat Litowitz likes to tell the story of how I became so distraught over a misplaced apostrophe on former managing editor Bob Vosburg’s retirement cake, that I got a butter knife and put it in its proper place. Pat insists that I compromised the cake by putting a hole in the icing. I tell him that I was not giving a longtime newspaper editor a cake with a misplaced apostrophe.
Blame that one on Mr. Wilson.
STOPPING TO SAY HI
I was a frequent visitor to Mr. Wilson’s classroom after my seventh-grade year ended, grading papers for him anytime he asked or sometimes just stopping in to chat.
One day, he asked what I planned on doing after high school. I told him I was thinking of going into nursing. I wanted to live at the Jameson Hospital School of Nursing and cut my boyfriend’s name out of construction paper and tape it to the windows like the nursing students did.
I still remember his words.
“Kayleen, you have a gift,” he said. “You were born to be a writer.”
Now before you think I’m bragging about my “gifts,” please know that I’m not, I really don’t have many, which was proven when I decided to take the necessary chemistry class as a prerequisite for nurse’s training. I got the first “D” of my school years during one grading period. The proverbial writing was on the wall.
I went to Mr. Wilson and asked what I should do.
“Well, you love sports and love writing, so why not become a sports writer,” he said.
My mother was crushed. Down went her hopes of someone in the family getting into the medical profession, or becoming the church organist, at the very least.
She did some research and found out that, at that time, there were only about 70 female sports writers in the country. She said the odds were against me to become No. 71.
But Mr. Wilson had planted a seed that I could not ignore.
AN IMPORTANT CALL
We kept in touch occasionally over the years. The last time I heard from him was this past winter, when he called after I won a national writing award.
I always planned on taking him to lunch or dinner to formally thank him for what he did for me, but of course, time got away and I never did. Shame on me.
He was surrounded by love during his funeral home visitation Tuesday night, a loving wife and four loving daughters, all of whom have been teachers at one time or another during their lives. And many former students came to pay their respects as well.
Mr. Wilson’s children all said he had spoken of me, even recently, and that made me feel good. We all laughed when I was telling the Pittsburgh Pirates story and one of his grandchildren admitted to not knowing what a transistor radio was.
One of Mr. Wilson’s daughters told me that he was tired after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer and its aftermath. She said he was ready to go home to be with his God.
Despite the sadness, I couldn’t help but smile as I left — thinking that Heaven is not only much richer for our loss today, it has every single apostrophe in place.
(Kayleen Cubbal is sports editor at The News.)
