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Ages ago, when I was 14, I was daydreaming during study hall. The proctor, long-time Latin teacher James McCleery, came up behind me and gave me a sharp poke in the back with one of his crutches.
“Mr. Irvine,” he said, “You seem idle.” He pulled a napkin out of his suit pocket, wrote a sentence on it and told me to name the part of speech for each word. The sentence read:
“That that is the same that that that that modifies.”
I floundered, and he taught. I learned most of the grammar I know from this one impromptu lesson. — Stuart Irvine '72
Our softball team was headed for the playoffs. Our coach was James McCleery, as smooth and as stern as a Dartmouth teacher of Spanish and Latin could be. I was the second baseman, captain and a hotshot senior.
My big play was to get a base on balls, jog towards first, and if the other team wasn’t paying attention, turn it on and slide into second with a stolen base. I pulled it off. The opposing team went into wild conversation. No one called a timeout, so I stole third. Coach McCleery was all over me: “There’s no one out, you’re the go-ahead run, stay on third and let someone hit you home.”
Well, the other team had me figured out by then. They faked me into running and threw me out by 15 feet. The next thing I remember is being in Brookside Park in my new letterman’s sweater for the championship game.
Coach McCleery wouldn’t play me. Here I was — the star! — and coach wouldn’t play me. I’ve forgotten the small stuff like who won the game or the league, but the puncture of my gigantic ego has stayed with me. Whenever my hat starts to feel tight, I think of Coach McCleery and Harvard School.
— Bill Hunt ’46 |