I’m painting the doors white. They were last painted 20 years ago when my former principal, now newly retired, arrived with his son to tear off the old metal gateway that had probably been up since some long gone owner had kept sheep there. They replaced it with two shiplap doors they made themselves and painted black. It held against the brunt of northwest storms, against who knows how many feet of snow, pounding rain, and freezes now largely disappearing.
I don’t take headphones with me or listen to music or news when I am out working or walking the dogs. I’m afraid I’ll miss something. I let my mind wander. Painting is a rhythmic exercise, satisfying in the set direction of covering with a new color that which had been dry and sullen, tattered and shabby. A fresh beginning is always lovely.
I’ve been thinking about Bill Faulkner, my principal for 19 years. I was 27 when he started at our high school in what was real country then, a hunting/farming community where less than 40 % of the seniors went on to college, a building overcrowded and understaffed — classes of 35 to 40 being normal — and one that experienced 4 to 5 bloody knock down fights every week.
I was 45 when he retired from a place of calm and order where over 80% of seniors went on to college, a place where teachers and kids no longer had to be alert to every raised voice and where crowds no longer gathered to watch boys go at each other like MMA fighters.
He believed in patience, and in the art of the possible. Slowly, year by year, he made changes that made the high school better than the year before.
He would be the first to tell you that he didn’t do this alone. He had the trust of 2 good Superintendents, Dr’s Claypool and Furin and of School Boards whose members changed but who saw in Bill a good man, competent, disciplined, even tempered, someone with a long range plan who had the faith of his staff behind him. Human beings were human beings to him and not captives to his ambition.
I have not seen Bill in years. I do not know how to contact him. I am sending this out on the wind and hoping it reaches him. I want him to know that he left his mark, and that he is remembered. The doors he built remain standing and open as sweetly as they ever did.
