Mr. Woodard died.
I was skimming the obituaries in the digital newspaper and recognized his photograph among the many, even though I hadn’t seen him in 53 years. His obituary reported that his death in a hospital in Mazatlan, Mexico was NOT the result of the SARS-CoV2 virus. His obituary also declared him a life-long bachelor. Why either fact was necessary to report, I don’t know.
Mr. Woodard was my first male teacher at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Sarnia, Ontario. Like boys in Grade 7 are wont to do, we attempted to exploit his vulnerabilities. After he curtly corrected one of us for mistakenly calling him “Mr. Woodward”, we would on occasion refer to him as such to provoke him. That usually resulted in a hard cuff to the back of the head.
Mr. Woodard was born and raised in Saskatchewan, went to U of S, like my father did, and received his teaching certificate from the College of Education in Regina. He also had achieved some measure of success as a semi-professional football player, and he often reminded us of that fact. In 1966, he took our little football team to the Sarnia finals. We won the Junior Varsity championship that year. I was a linesman, an offensive guard. I remember the bright lights of Norm Perry Park during the game. It was cold and it was wonderful.
Even as I sat in his class, I thought Mr. Woodard aspired to be a football player more so than to be our teacher, or anyone’s teacher. He was an angry man. Looking back, I suspect we became an outlet for his disappointment and frustration with his lot in life. I remember the school bell sounding in the boys’ yard at recess and, as we filed into the school in two parallel lines, he grabbed Marek Wiechula by his shirt at the neck and pulled him off the ground, holding him against the door frame, his face red and contorted in anger, yelling. Marek’s crime was saying “Hello Mr. Woodward”. Mr. Woodard was 24 years old at the time. We were 13.
He was young. He would throw a football at us, in class, when he wanted someone to answer a quiz question. It was his way of amusing himself and getting our attention. It also kept us from day-dreaming. How fast he threw the ball and who was the next intended receiver were the unknowns. You paid attention or you paid the price.
Like memories, you don’t get to pick your teachers, nor they you. At Sacred Heart during recess, my younger brother sustained a 3 1/2-inch gash to his forehead from a chain link fence while sprinting from his pursuers during a game of British Bulldog. He remembers Mr Woodard driving him to the hospital in his Mustang convertible, weaving through what traffic there was on Christina Street like a running linebacker, blood all over the car seat. Scars are memories and memories are scars.
Mr. Woodard went on to complete Masters and PhD degrees in criminology and taught at the University of Toronto, before going back to teaching elementary and secondary students in the city. Curiously, he was a Senior Don at Devonshire House, a residence of Trinity College at the University of Toronto. In the summers, long ago, I used to be a custodian at Devonshire House: making beds, cleaning rooms, mopping bathrooms, and cleaning up after people. Perhaps he and I had crossed paths once again.
Mr. Woodard died. I just had to tell someone. Now we can both rest.