One Last Message

An Old Mentor Reaches Out

My friend and mentor Dr. Craig Werner, at left. On the right is another Buffalo friend, Al Pautler.

The universe spoke to me this week and I thought I’d share its message.

In college, I had a brilliant and funny professor of Children’s Literature and Mythology by the name of Craig Gustav Werner. I called him Doc. Doc was blind.

My one and only Teacher’s Assistant job in college was with Doc. I would help him grade his student introductory papers by reading them out loud to him.

I’d have to read very, very slowly, and I’d have to pronounce ever single puncuation or syntax error or feature.

So, for the above sentence, I would have to read out loud as follows: “Capitol I. I’d, correct apostrophe, have to read very, comma, very slowly, comma, and I’d, correct apostrophe, have to pronounce ever, missing a Y, single punctuation, spelled wrong, or syntax error or feature, period”

I’d read whole 5-10 page papers in this manner, hundreds of them. I loved that job so much, just thinking about it now makes me smile. It made me think in elaborate detail about the structure of writing, improved my vocabulary and I got to hang out with a teacher and mentor all day long.

Doc passed away earlier this month at the age of 76. I had noticed his passing, but really hadn’t planned on writing about him, until yesterday.

I got an email from my friend Jim Viar that he found a copy of my book, The White Mountain, in the used section of Gibson’s Bookstore up in Concord, only a couple miles from me. The book he found was inscribed by me to “Doc Werner.”

Somehow, Doc’s book, that I gave him as a gift a few years ago, made it’s way up into my backyard. Perhaps someone had helped Doc clean out his library. Maybe Doc had passed the book on to a friend.

But it’s here! And thanks to Jim, it will now make it’s way back to me only a couple weeks after Doc passed on. It’s like Doc is returning the book to me, a final act between teacher and student.

The book will be placed into my permanent collection, my own memory of a man whose mentorship helped me become the writer I am and write The White Mountain to begin with.

All too often, the world feels like random chaos.

But other days, like today, there’s hints that maybe it’s not. That there can be connection. Thanks Doc, thanks for reaching out one last time.