We all have people in our lives that leave a mark. Sometimes the mark is a scar that we’d like to forget but can’t. Others change your mind…change your direction…move you on. You may not know the road but they help you find your feet. I’ve met many of those people in my life and while my road has never been very straight…those people left me with the certainty that there were more people to be met and more changes to be made. I can only thank them all and never enough.
Middleditch was a teacher when I was in school. Big, jovial, ex-navy, with a passion for history that was neither pedantic nor boring. It may be thanks to him that I never stopped reading. In 1956 this guy in a little high-school in southern Ontario knew about the world…predicted the rise of China and the demise of the Soviet Union…knew there would be more war in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and knew it was the French being silly and the Americans being…well, American. I had just reached the age when school felt like a glove full of thumb tacks. He never paid any special attention to me…just made each class a little better. He would put down the text book and lean back on his desk and just talk…maybe about something he saw in the paper…maybe something he heard on the radio. Kids in the class could ask questions, not raising hands formal but like in an interesting conversation. We didn’t even know how unusual this was but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that learned more in those classes than almost all of the others. He lived down the road from town…in a stone house with a white porch and a flag-pole with the old flag of Canada on it. My uncle told me that Middleditch had a hard war in the navy. So did my uncle.
I forgot about Middleditch for years. Until one day in London on the way home from Tunisia I did a little drawing for a friend…When it was done I suddenly thought…”that’s Middleditch”. I hope she still has it. Later I did this drawing and there he was again. He didn’t commit suicide…at least I don’t think he did.
I wanted this drawing to be gritty and textured…so I over sprayed it. I still have it…framed but not hanging. I visit it once in a while and think of Middleditch, wonder where that name came from…and oh yeah…his name wasn’t Arthur.
Chagal4's Blog 
Leave a comment