In Praise of Older Magazines

In 1982, I learned a valuable lesson at the caddy shack and it wasn’t about keeping my grip loose on a sand trap shot.

Within the social dynamics of the golf course caddy shack setting, there were your punk kid caddies looking for a loop, there were your enterprising capitalist caddies working to relieve the other caddies of the tips they earned on the course through card games and sucker bets, and there was the rarest variety of caddy: the self-actualizing adult caddy like Rusty Morales.

I’m not sure if Rusty needed the extra money or he enjoyed the exercise. I don’t why he spent his weekend mornings in the caddy shack with us high school age caddy masters and the punk kid caddies we wrangled for the country club. He arrived a little after 7am on Saturday and Sunday mornings with his round wire-rimmed glasses. He resembled Dustin Hoffman’s character in "Papillon" with his thick lenses and after carrying two fully-laden golf bags for 18 holes, he was sweating like a Devil's Island inmate too.

Rusty kept to himself and read old news magazines. Every time he came to the club, he'd bring a Time or a U.S. News tucked under his arm. These weren't a week or two past the cover date, but two or three years beyond the original publication. I knew people liked to save old National Geographic issues, but why a topical news publication?

"Rusty, what's with the barbershop mag? The cover says March 5, 1981. That was last year, man."

"It’s not old news if you haven’t read it before", he said and returned to his article.

I suspected Rusty Morales wasn’t there for the loop money or the fresh air. His answer was way too Zen for the caddy shack. The phone rang. Another golfer was waiting on the first tee for his golf bag and a caddy. When Rusty left he took his Newsweek with him.

There's an obvious point about great literature being timeless and that's certainly true. Odd that Rusty made the same point about a Newsweek magazine. They published that sucker every week whether there was any news or not. We didn't ponder the Socratic nuances of the self-actualizing caddy anyway, with all the range balls to pick up and club heads to wipe down. But every once in a while, I’d be driving around the course in a golf cart, picking up the flag sticks after sundown and I’d think about what Rusty said.

I went away to college after graduating from Shawnee Mission North. I came back in the summer and worked the busy season with the shotgun tournaments and the junior golf clinics. I don’t know what became of Rusty Morales. Maybe he finally caught up on his magazine reading. He’s gone and so is the caddy shack. They replaced it with a bigger barn for more electric carts and I hear there are fewer players these days that prefer a caddy.

* * *

Recently I found an old edition of my high school newspaper, The Mission. It was among some things my mom found in the basement over at the house. My name was in it somewhere. This particular issue was the last one published by my senior class and featured coverage of prom, award ceremonies, and a feature on five teachers who were retiring.

I forgot that five instructors chose to step down that year. Between Norma Bone, Steve Davis, Fred Foreman, Dorothy Pease, and Gertrude Welch, they taught nearly 150 years at Shawnee Mission North. Miss Welch taught over 40 years by herself.

I never had Miss Welch for math. She taught the hard stuff: Calculus. I bailed on mathematics after one term of Trigonometry my senior year. But we all knew Miss Welch. She was a fixture of the upstairs hallway, busting smokers in the girls’ restroom, tip-toeing in with her slide rule and support shoes to deliver an impromptu lecture on smoking or truancy or something. I don't know what she said exactly, but us Trig slackers heard her voice all the way down in Mr. Wheaton’s room.

Last year I went back to Shawnee Mission North. The student council, with the blessing of the present administration, opened the doors of the ivy-covered brick building to the class of '83 on a Saturday as part of our class reunion activities. It was July 19th, 2003.

Conversations turned to Trudy Welch when we got to the math hallway upstairs.

"Did you know she started teaching at North during World War II", somebody said.

We stopped and looked in her old classroom. I spent three years at North and it seemed like an eternity. She was there for four decades. Since I didn’t take Calc, the only thing we had in common was leaving the grounds at the close of school business in 1983 and not returning that fall.

After more reminiscing about her teaching style and the pop quizzes she was famous for, the group of nostalgic 38 year-olds moved along. I spent a lot time peering in those rectangular windows on the classroom doors and lingering in front of the hallway plaques I never made time for as a boy.

It was eerie when I picked up the Kansas City Star four days later and read that Mary Gertrude Welch was dead.

Born on August 31, 1917 in Larned, Kansas. She graduated from Lawrence High School in 1935. She taught at Shawnee Mission North for 41 years. She never married. She died on July 17th, 2003 just two days before our return to the school. The cause of death wasn’t listed, but a similar notice appeared in the Lawrence paper. I think she died of old age.

It was a fitting dénouement that on a Saturday during the summer, her name echoed through the upstairs hallway one more time. In the most unlikely manner, at the most unlikely time, her spirit still pervaded the premises. But it wasn’t Welch's style to pipe down quietly. She spoke up.

In that May 13, 1983 edition of The Mission, on page 26, Miss Welch summed up her teaching career. Rusty Morales was right, its not old news if you haven't read it, and in this case, the chance discovery of my high school newspaper allowed Trudy Welch to speak again, 21 years after her retirement and a year after her death:

"My best thoughts are of the people – faculty, administration and students. Some have gone from school and achieved fame. But many are doing an exceptional job in positions of responsibility without fanfare and public acclaim.

To me, these are the important ones and I’m proud to say I have known them. Having worked with over 5000 of them, I have a lot to be proud of. Friends are the most important results of my years at SMN. I know of no other place I could have made more or better friends.

And now, back to my stained glass projects."

The teacher I never had and the caddy I barely knew conspired over the years to teach me an unexpected lesson in 2004 about the permanence of topical media and the fleeting nature of institutions.