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Memorable Teachers

May 29, 2025 by DickH Posted in Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Memorable Teachers

By Leo Racicot

See photos at end of story.

Mr. Trull was a terrifying man. For one thing, to our young freshmen minds, he looked like he was a hundred years old. This was confirmed for me when I came home and my mother asked me how my first days in high school were going. When I told her I had Mr. Trull for Latin One, she exclaimed, “L. Wyman Trull?!! I had him for American History!” I told her how old he looked and she said, “He looked old when I had him.” I don’t know what made me sign up for Latin; the school required that all students take either three years of one language or two years of two languages so I chose Latin and French, both of which I came to absolutely love. I went on to pick French as my major at Lowell State Teachers College, and Latin as my minor. But how I ever made it through Mr. Trull’s class, I still don’t know. We’d all be sitting there as silent as mice when all-of-a-sudden, his tunnel mouth pierced the air and he’d jump up out of his seat, pointing a bony, arthritic finger only inches from our faces and bellow out a name, usually mispronounced — “Ray-si-cotte!! Give meeee the second person plural of porto!!” I’d jump a mile, or maybe it was a mile-and-a-half. The only reason I’d come up with the right answer is because I thought if I didn’t, Trull was going to kill me,” Trull (doesn’t it sound like a great name for a Lord of the Rings villain?) would have struck the fear of God into God Himself. But after I survived him, I realized I had benefited from his gatling gun, very no-nonsense method of instruction. Because we did learn from the old buzzard. He was cut from the mold of teachers of a time that had long since passed from American education and I know I write better, think better, know logic and common sense, and a deeply embedded self-discipline and self-structure because of him. He gave us a solid foundation for the studies that were to come and I look backs so fondly on the man.

At Saint Patrick’s, I developed a crush on the French language (thanks in part to Sister Antoinette Marie’s baby French lessons, aided by the WGBH television series, Parlons Francais, hosted by the laughable Madame Slack whose Ecoutez et Repetez method of teaching had us students howling with delight). But behind the ridicule and derision, my young heart fell deeply in love with All Things French. More than my infatuation with the language and its culture was my infatuation with my Lowell High School French One teacher, Mary Ann Manning. Miss Manning was so pretty, certainly prettier than any nun I’d had for a teacher in grade school. Her calm, measured presence and presentation of the language, her attractive looks and chic outfits, her hair (which she wore, as did many of the young ladies of her time, in the style of Jacqueline Kennedy) — all of it, merely the fact of “her” put me under a spell every D period, following a lunch I’d gulp down so I could get to Miss Manning’s class as fast as I could. When, at the end of the freshman year, I picked up my class schedule for Sophomore year and saw that I’d be having Miss Manning once again for French Two — well, this boy was over-the-moon. Year Two of French was even more wonderful than Year One until that is, Miss Manning announced that she planned to marry and would soon be “Mrs. Kennedy”. Bummer. How could she go and marry some Bozo and not me! Mid-year, she told us she had to take a leave of absence and I was devastated, especially when I saw her replacement, one Doris R. Bourgeois Herlihy. Madame Herlihy, though also attractive, was a woman much older than Madame Kennedy. She had a noble, aristocratic bearing. She always carried herself and her briefcase as if she was on her way to a Very Important Meeting and spoke French with a rapid-fire casualness well beyond my abilities. She took a liking to me early on, liked my “perfect accent” and insisted I was to attend The Sorbonne my Junior Year, at her urging. “I have big plans for you, Monsieur Leo” Oh….brother….I’d run into her on the stairs between classes and she’d ambush me with her rat-a-tat French. I, of course, had no idea what in hell she was saying. With French foreign language deficiencies, it’s best that one nod and smile, nod and smile, knowingly, inserting the occasional “oui” into the conversation. Fooled ’em every time. I never did go on to The Sorbonne, never saw either woman again but carried the deep love of French the two had instilled in me all the way through college and beyond. It, and the lovely Madame Kennedy and the eccentric Madame Herlihy, I hold forever in my deepest being for all the Joy that language has brought me over a lifetime.

Allie Scruggs was the coolest guy I’d ever known. He looked like a thin Charlie Mingus. Like Mingus, he sported a long, scraggly chin beard. When he liked an answer you gave in class, he’d run his long Fu Manchu fingernails slowly through it and purr “Yee-aah“. He boasted a colorful past and was friends with comedian, Redd Foxx. I once saw the two eating breakfast at Deli Haus in the old Kenmore Square. Dr. Scruggs was the first professor I knew who fought the good, nonviolent fight for civil rights. He annexed us students to volunteer our time and energies to Roxbury’s Project Place and its dispossessed African-American population, especially its children. He opened my world view up to what’s important in Life and in society, and I credit him with helping develop my strong belief in the rights of the individual, the belief that each of us, in his or her own way, can make a difference. I’ll never forget the time he ran the movie, The T.A.M.I.Show for the class and jumped up and boogied down in front of us when James Brown came on the screen.

Margaret Guindon didn’t look as liberal-minded as she was. She looked like someone’s staid aunt or a member of her son’s PTA. But in English class, where language and words were concerned, she was full of fire. In the ’70s, Mrs. Guindon defied convention, putting us wise to the poetry and magic inherent in the lyrics of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, & Joni Mitchell at a time when Longfellow, Wordsworth, Greenleaf Whittier were pretty much all that was being taught. A real revolutionary, I think…

Edith Hancock was a French Algerian from Abidjan. She had wild black eyes and wild black hair. Recently, when I watched astronaut, Sunny Williams, in the news and her wild gravity-infused hair, I thought of Madame Hancock. Edith was fond of challenging us French students to go beyond our comfort zones and when she saw how shy I was, she literally forced me to perform in a production of Moliere’s Le Medecin Malgre Lui. I played the father. She picked out the most ridiculous-looking costume for me to wear and when I was changing into it in The Men’s Room of Mahoney Hall, she burst into the stall and made adjustments and stuck a safety pin here and there where alterations were needed. During rehearsals, I’d had a problem projecting my voice so when we hit the stage of Little Theater, Mrs. Hancock ran behind the curtain and was shouting in a too-loud voice, “Plus haute, Leo! Avec laforce!” So embarrassing! The audience did burst out laughing the minute I appeared from the wings in my absurd pantaloons and feathered hat, and my lifelong friend, Linda Scanlon, recently reminded me what I looked like after the performance, walking up busy Broadway Street at rush hour in that silly costume.

College French II, and higher levels of French, were taught by Dr. Robert Bousquet, whom we were to learn later on was a member of the Xaverian order of priests and brothers, stationed at Saint John’s Prep, Danvers. The French Department, in those days, was small in number; I was the only male in the major. Part of the department’s charm was that it was housed in a small residence on lower Wilder Street. Going to class was like going to a friend’s home for private lessons. Cozy. Bob was brilliant. He had a PhD from Georgetown University in French Language and Literature, a Master’s in Music from Catholic University, loved semantics, and languages of any kind (he spoke not only French but Creole, German and Dutch fluently) He was also an orchestra musician (he could play practically every wind instrument with ease) and was a champion speller. He was also the kindest, gentlest soul I’ve ever met, and would go out of his way for you, give you the proverbial shirt off his back. Following my graduation from college, he remained a close friend and mentor, and when I was having my troubles, he’d drive all the way from Danvers down to Norton, Massachusetts to treat me to a deluxe nosh and a chat. One of Bob’s favorite activities was to take the whole class out to eat. Usually, these convivial meals were held at The Athenian Corner on Market Street, and I have many good memories of them. Bob’s deep desire to leave teaching to do missionary work in Africa was thwarted when an annual checkup with his doctor revealed he had Parkinson’s Disease, a cruel and debilitating condition that slowly ate away at his vitality. Still, when I was living and working in Cambridge, he’d visit me every single week, catching a ride from two fellow Xaverian buddies, bringing me poems of mine he’d transcribed into manuscript form. I cherish the memory of our walks through Harvard Square, seeing so many interesting sights, so many halcyon days.

Christos “Chris” Bentas looked like the Roman emperors and gods he talked to us about in our Latin, Greek and Classical Civilization classes: he was as tall as Mount Olympus and his hair was Roman in style. He had a sly, sometimes naughty sense of humor and was so impassioned about his subject that his enthusiasm was infectious. Of course, it didn’t take much to get me fired up about Latin. Ours was a tiny study group, it consisted of Dr. Bentas, myself and only two others: John Kalergeropoulos (who put himself through school working downtown at George’s Textile for years), and Linda Scanlon who went on to teach Latin at Matignon and later for Andover Public Schools. We three met in an oblong office on the second floor of Coburn Hall. The space might have been claustrophobic if not for the private club feel of it. In Latin III, we were joined by Jack Grondalski, whose dad had been head of the Science Department at Lowell High and whose cousin was Joe Markiewicz, my best friend. Latin wasn’t for Jack, and he said as much to Dr. Bentas every session. Dr. Bentas, like Dr. Bousquet, also dazzled in the smarts department; he’d earned his PhD in the Classics at Boston University and like Donald Bailey, my Latin II instructor at Lowell High, could speak fluent Latin (a rarity in those days or indeed, in any day) and had a Masters degree in Byzantine chant and was the founder of and organist for The Byzantine Male Choir, which performed regularly at Holy Trinity Church in Lowell’s Ecumenical Square. I tried for years to find a rare recording the choir made but I guess it was too rare. Dr. Bentas loved to tell us stories of his time studying Eastern Orthodox chant in Italy and Athens. He made what many considered to be a dead language come to life. He made learning fun (something I, as a former teacher, know isn’t an easy thing to do).

I was working at O’Leary Library (10 of the most glorious years of my life). It was 1993 and I was feeling like I needed to do something new. My colleague, Sylvia Contover, said, “Leo, did you know that as full-time employees, we can take courses here for free? Why don’t you go back to school and get your Master’s?“ And that’s how I came to know Dr. Thomas G. Devine, a nationally recognized reading authority. The graduate program in education was located off of Princeton Blvd. on the grounds of what used to be the city’s juvie, Lowell Detention Center, where my father used to threaten to put me when I misbehaved. I loved the setting: architecturally interesting, old buildings mostly hidden in fields of bee-mad glades, clouds of mosquitoes, leafy, ancient trees. I believe West Campus is gone now as is Dr. Devine. Dr. Devine was a real character. He was mostly mild-mannered, with a wicked wit. But he could bellow if he thought a student was trying to con him or take shortcuts to a grade. “You’re here to learn! Don’t be lazy! And never never be redundant!” He had a blind spot where my writing was concerned; I could do no wrong. lt like all I had to do was pass in my latest paper and he’d slap an A+ on it without even looking at it. One time, he was boasting to the class how “remarkable” my work was and burst out with “Lee-oh is the author of many, fine novels!” Of course, I wasn’t, and in my meek, soft-spoken way tried to tell him and the class I wasn’t but he came back even louder with “Oh, come come now. You’re much too modest.” What a riot. After I left graduate school, Tom and I developed a delightful epistolary relationship. I treasured and have kept his many letters, and postcards sent from his travels to Ireland and Italy. How Tom loved Italy. He spent his retirement doing his favorite activities. He loved his cats, his garden, taking his bicycle out meandering through the hills of The Arnold Arboretum. He was a skilled artist and painted many fine depictions of New England lighthouses which he kindly sent me as gifts. To say that Tom loved opera would be an understatement, and in retirement he earned the equivalent of a PhD in opera from B.U.

I offer these remembrances in hopes these men and women will not be forgotten. I think better, write more clearly (I hope!), and possess a more positive outlook on Life because of them and others like them. When I’m being decent, or trying at least to be decent, my decency is a reflection of their own.

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