The Improbable Teacher
THE IMPROBABLE TEACHER A MOMENT PROFILE He is 70 years old, and his body is steel cable; no sag, no dodder. He spends 60 hours a month going door-to-door as a Jehovah's Witness. He loves the...
...The highest rank you could reach as a black was first sergeant, and that's what I was, first with a combat company and then with an ammunition company...
...When they get sick and miss class for a time, they'll call me and ask for private lessons to catch up...
...I just plunged in and I've been digging away ever since...
...My problem was that I couldn't stay out of people's cars...
...I never missed one day in the last 40 years of work...
...I have three boys, all grown and married, and I'm a very happy man...
...You've got six plural endings in Russian, and before you talk with any degree of fidelity, you've got to know those endings...
...First of all, I like them...
...I've been married 40 years, and it's been a beautiful marriage...
...But then, when the Russians withstood the siege, I foresaw that Russia would be a superpower after the war, and I decided to learn Russian...
...After all, the other teachers have to earn a living...
...I got sent to jail with such disgusting regularity that finally the judge said, 'I'm sending you to the Lansing School for Boys.' That was an industrial school, the kind where they tried to teach you a trade...
...And that's where I met my wife, at the shorthand school...
...What happened was that they were interning the Japanese, putting them in concentration camps back when the war started...
...I've been cutting people's hair for 50 years now, and at today's prices, I figure I've saved millions just from cutting my wife's hair...
...They talk to you, they get close to you...
...And he teaches English to new Russian Jewish immigrants in Los Angeles...
...I managed two lessons a month, and then I got to solo, and occasionally I'd take passengers for a fee...
...They have a certain forthrightness about them that I like...
...That's how it started...
...I've done it...
...I very much wanted to be a pilot...
...My interest in Russian started back when I was in the marines, during World War II...
...I hear people all the time saying, 'Oh, I'd so much like to learn Spanish.' Well, why don't they...
...I've never been sick...
...Well, as a Jehovah's Witness, I've learned how rich the Bible is...
...And the Witnesses teach you to apply the teachings of the Bible to your life...
...I used to take her to services and wait outside in the car...
...I started out just as a regular painter and then I worked my way up...
...I was born in Alabama, but when I was eight, my folks moved to Detroit...
...As a child, I was very influenced by the Arthurian legends, and I think the principles I encountered there have helped me throughout my life...
...It grieves me when they ask for help after class and I have to turn them down because I have other things to do...
...We had separate camps, but all the officers were white...
...In some ways, it's like learning to speak a foreign language...
...He's black...
...Back then, you couldn't tell a freight train from a passenger train, there were so many people riding the rails...
...Well, I never graduated from high school, but they found that I could do the job...
...Anybody could do the things I've done...
...We treat everything in the Bible as if it were inspired by God, as the Word of God...
...The Bible is not an easy book to understand...
...Then, when the war came, I went into the Marine Corps...
...Then I read in the paper that there was quite an influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia, so I stopped by at the Jewish Community Center...
...otherwise you'll talk haltingly...
...He loves the Arthurian legends...
...No, I don't think of myself as unusually accomplished...
...Russian is a very hard language to learn...
...Way back, I taught myself shorthand...
...We study it to discern God's purposes, for we believe that God is a perfect Creator who doesn't do substandard work...
...If they see some lint on your clothing, they'll brush it off, and if they're so moved, they'll embrace you with a real bear hug...
...My wife has been a Jehovah's Witness for 25 years or so...
...And the teacher saw that I knew more than the other students, so she put me to work helping her with teaching...
...I was a painting contractor...
...Anyway, when I was 19,1 hoboed out here...
...Then, one day, it was very stormy, and instead of reading in the car while she was at services I went inside with her...
...I get a great deal of satisfaction from helping the Russians...
...I'm retired...
...Spanish is a very easy language to learn...
...When I got here, I started taking courses in aviation...
...And I heard a sermon that made more sense to me than anything I'd ever heard...
...I had the idea that I might go into diplomatic service...
...They ended up crop-dusting, or flying for a South American or African country...
...In English grammar, we have only three cases...
...And I get great satisfaction, great satisfaction, from it...
...No, it didn't start that way...
...I'd earn a few dollars a day from shining shoes, and then I'd manage to save five dollars, and for every five dollars, you could buy one flying lesson...
...He's been a barber, a house painter, a marine, a flyer...
...Religion happened to me about eight years ago...
...And as to the Bible, most people know it only superficially, if they know it at all...
...His name is Carl Booth, and moment talked with him last month...
...Even after the war, a lot of my friends who had been in combat and who had flown bombers or fighters couldn't get into commercial aviation...
...I charge the $15, but I give them three hours for it...
...But aviation was closed to blacks...
...I remember that when Leningrad was under siege, I was sure there was going to be a repeat of the first World War, where the Germans just overran Russia and there was a separate peace...
...they touch you...
...One evening, I was looking through his books, and I came across one on shorthand, so I began to study it...
...And there was a Japanese chap who lived next door to me and when they were about to move him to the camp he asked me to take care of his books and his stove and icebox...
...I'd been trying to do something with my Russian for a long time, but I hadn't been able to find anyone who could speak the language...
...After a while, they needed new teachers...
...The going rate for that kind of tutoring is $15 an hour...
...I'd been a Baptist, but even though I was in the choir and on the usher board, I'd learned nothing about the Bible...
...Of course, there was a black marine corps and a white marine corps...
...Fifty-five years ago, he was a car thief...
...I jump rope for 45 minutes a day, and I do a lot of running, and I ride my bicycle to work...
...What they taught me was barbering, and also how to work a lathe...
...I think they were a little surprised to see me, and they may have been a bit skeptical...
...So our job is to understand, and then to live up to the standards...
...After all, some of the great heroes of the Bible were not educated men, yet they wrote lucidly enough for us to be able to follow their fine principles even now...
...There's been quite a change since the days when the things young people read were based on the idea of good...
...God has blessed me...
...in Russian, there are twelve...
...They've suffered a great cultural shock in coming here, and the thing they want the most, they want desperately, is language...
...It was a wonderful experience...
...You can always tell what they've been eating, and they're very physical...
...My father was a doctor, but he died soon after we moved, and my mother, who was a very genteel woman, earned what she could by giving music lessons...
...Well, I sent away for a langua-phone course...
...And with the Witnesses, I have others to speak that language with...
...Except now, with the reduced rate of immigration, they've cut back on classes, so I'm just a helper again...
...I started off as a kind of teacher's helper—setting up the blackboards, taking the roll, things like that...
...And now I have a Russian typewriter—and, finally, some people with whom to actually talk the language...
...Well, after a month or so I finished it, and then I went to night school to go on from there...
...I had taught myself Russian, but I needed to use it...
Vol. 6 • July 1981 • No. 7
