College Professor: Eulogy for my Dad

My dad was a teacher. And I am a teacher, too.

One of the many wholly unexpected joys of this experience in losing my dad occurred at the mortuary when we were reviewing my dad’s death certificate for the first time. My mom and dad in their characteristic foresight had completed the pre-need paperwork years ago, and so we were just reviewing the document for accuracy. And we saw that my dad had chosen to record as his occupation “College Professor.” Now, my dad had a lot of careers in his lifetime. As his first job in the U.S., he worked as an electrical engineer at a couple of big firms in the Bay Area. When we were teenagers, he was a professional photographer, and in his later years, he became a CPA and he worked as an accountant for years. But this is the way he wanted to be remembered, as my childhood remembers him: as a College Professor.

My sister, Julie, had a rare opportunity a few months ago (they shared an hour’s drive together just the two of them) to ask him if he had any regrets in his life. Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered that, no, he had no regrets. But, if he could do it all again, he would have stuck with teaching.

So yes, my dad was a teacher. My Dad was a professor of Engineering and Mathematics at San Francisco City College for 20 years. The reason he was a teacher was because his own father was a teacher. My Grandad, Laurence Hunt, was a geography teacher and Headmaster at the Christian Brothers Secondary School in Kilkenny, Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. And the reason he was a teacher was because (yep, you guessed it) his own father was a teacher. My Great Grandad, also named Edward Hunt, was a teacher in a rural one-room schoolhouse in County Laois, Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s. So, including me, a high school English teacher in southern California, that’s four generations of teachers spanning the last century. All subjects, all ages. My calling to teach was always in me; there was never a question of what I was supposed to do with my life. And although I denied its existence for a while, it coursed inexorably through my bloodline.

So yes, my dad was a college professor. But he wasn’t just a college professor. He was a college professor who, when we were kids growing up in northern California, wore a full-bodied yellow rain slicker to work on blustery days. That’s right. The painstakingly bright yellow pants, the jacket with the duckbill hood, and black rubber boots. There are few things more embarrassing to a preteen than having your dad drop you off at school attired in THAT get-up.

• Did he know what he was teaching me? Did he know I learned how cool it was to be conclusively nerdy? Did he know I learned that embarrassing one’s children is one of the greatest joys of life? Because you’re not embarrassing them so much as challenging them to Be Different.

 My dad wasn’t just a college professor. He was a college professor who loved Star Trek. I once asked him, “Daddy: is there really life on other planets?” and he answered “Well, there’s only two possible answers to that question: yes or no. ‘No’ is not very interesting. But ‘Yes’ is fascinating.”

•  Did he know what he was teaching me? Did he know I learned the concept of “vastness” and not just globally, but on an inter-galactic scale? or of infinite possibility? Or that we, his children, could boldly go where no man had gone before?

 My dad wasn’t just a college professor. He was a college professor who brought home from work reams of blank colored paper, pink and green. It turns out, what was a treasure trove of creativity to us was actually the back of his exams. On one side were engineering exam questions, but who cared? We hardly noticed them. It was the other side -- the blank side -- that mattered to us. We used that paper to draw and cut and paste and fold into, well, infinite possibilities.

•  Did he know what he was teaching me? Did he know I learned how to steal things from work? Did he know I learned the beauty of the blank page? It’s where I began to write.

 My dad was a teacher. I am a teacher, too. Grief is an immovable teacher. It is consumptive, like fire. But like fire, it also ignites. It ignites a fierce primordial exigence, not unlike joy. Joy is an immovable teacher, too. From my childhood, I only remember joy. And curiosity. And music. And wonder. And love.

 Did he know what he was teaching me? My dad was a teacher. And I am a teacher, too.