Do You Remember Me?

Ruth and I took a three-week, belated honeymoon, during the summer of 1972.   One of our stops on our southern swing was Biloxi, Mississippi.  The two biggest memories of that stop were the cockroaches that Ruth discovered in our motel room when she switched on the bathroom light and the beautiful plantation style mansions that lined the gulf coast between Biloxi and Gulfport.  Our next visit took place on January 1, 1997 and our third in the summer of 2004.  (It’s funny what you can recall when you dust off your memory bits.)  The mansions were just as beautiful each time we visited.

We’ve returned to Biloxi since then but each of those visits have been post Katrina and post beautiful plantation style mansions.  Katrina took them all.

We recently traveled to Biloxi with our great friends, Jim and Diane.  The first morning of our trip a woman walked up to our breakfast table and asked, “Do you remember me?”  I did.  I looked into her eyes and replied, “Stacey?”   That’s where I first look when people ask if I remember them.  People change as they age.  Some get fatter, turn grey haired, develop wrinkles (that’s my trifecta) but most eyes remain the same, so it’s always eyes first for me.

Stacey was a bus driver for me when I was superintendent in Britton-Macon. I haven’t seen her in more than a dozen years.  I have stories about Stacey that I could share, but her only real request of me was to be remembered.  I do.

I was having lunch a few months ago in a favorite restaurant when a lady came up to my table and said, “Bob, it’s Gracia.  Remember me?”  I remembered.  I remember her son, John, too.   When I was the elementary school principal in Addison, John and I were tight.  John and I had a conversation, or two, almost every day.  Gracia and I spoke briefly about our many talks during John’s elementary school career.  She shared, and we celebrated, the fact that John is a long distance truck driver and doing very well.

After she left the table, I reminded Ruth that Gracia and her husband, Dick, left a bottle of Jim Beam in a brown paper bag  on my desk for four continuous years.  It came the final day of school with a note that said, “You earned this.  Thank you, Gracia , Dick and John.”

Ruth and I have our mail forwarded to Florida each winter.   About ten days prior to my return to Michigan, (Ruth doesn’t return as soon as I do.) I have the post office hold my mail so that I have a minimal interruption to the bill paying process.  When I arrive in Michigan, I go to the post office to collect the mountain they’ve collected on my behalf.

Last April a man and his wife joined me in the post office lobby when I picked up the mail.  He said, “Mr. Tebo, do you remember me?”

“Yes, Scott, I remember you.”  His tattoos threw me off, but I remembered his eyes.

Scott was one of my elementary school students.  He’s 43 or 44 now.  When Scott was 12, he was a member of the “Tigers” baseball team. Not the Detroit Tigers, but the Tigers I coached in the local little league program.  He and another eleven players made up the roster of one of the baddest  (when I say bad, I mean good) group of young hombres to ever grace the baseball fields of Addison, Michigan.  We beat everyone and were the Addison Little League Champions.   To hear Scott tell the tale to his wife, we could have been world champions.   He was very proud to relive the story of what he and his teammates had accomplished.  He wasn’t the best player on our team, but I expect that he may remember better than most.  He was proud of that accomplishment and wished to share it with someone he loved even if it occurred over thirty years prior.

One of my moments of pride occurred during the last six months of being the superintendent of Britton-Macon.  My last six months and David’s first six months of becoming the superintendent in Michigan Center overlapped.  We were the only father/son duo in the state.  One day the two of us were walking together in a local home supply store when a voice from the rear yelled out, “Hey, Mr. Tebo.”

We both turned around and I quickly ran through my storehouse of eyes so that I could determine the identity of this young person.  The young boy walked up to David and asked, “What are you doing here, Mr. Tebo?”

“Shopping with my dad.” was his simple reply.

David and my roles were reversing in the public eye.  That was the moment that David stopped being “my son”, and I became “his dad”.

Whether your name is Stacey, Gracia, Scott, Bob, or even Biloxi, we all want to be remembered.   For most of us being remembered means that we have had purpose.  That while we are here, we’ve made a difference.   We want someone to remember and share our story.  And if we are still around to take part in the sharing, that makes every shared moment even better.