Mr. Q.

Mr. Q.

Noel Laflin

2-27-15

My old high school journalism teacher out-lived doctors’ predictions for post-war longevity by forty-seven years.  Family, friends, and colleagues, along with several thousand students were grateful for that medical miscalculation.  When I learned of Mr. Q’s extended days upon this earth, he was already at the half-way point – that was in the fall of 1968.  Doctors had cautioned him that he had perhaps six months to live following his release from a Japanese prisoner of war camp – that was in the fall of 1945.  Mr. Q. eventually gave into mortality in the spring of 1992.  He was one tough old guy.  He was also an outstanding instructor and journalism advisor. And he blatantly lied once – to a fellow Anaheim High School instructor - just to keep me out of trouble.

He was my favorite high school teacher – even after he had forgotten who I was.

But let’s back up a moment and let me give you a little journalistic background on Larry Quille, fondly referred to as Mr. Q.

You see, every first-year journalism student had an opportunity – nay, a final assignment – to interview the very man teaching that class.  He always insisted that this week-long group participation project, where we pretended to be cub reporters interviewing returning POW’s upon their return to US soil (as it had really happened to him so long ago) was his way of teaching the intricacies of both the interview process as well as the eventual written story itself.  And although this proved to be a pretty cool test for the last semester of our sophomore year, and one where we took copious notes in order to write a decent final paper, I think now that it may also have been a very therapeutic exercise on his part as well.

   

So, some of my recollections as a sixteen-year-old wannabe newspaper reporter participating in that interview and final paper are as follows:

 

Larry Quille graduated from Anaheim High School himself in 1930, showing a passion for journalism even back then.  He went into that field after graduation.

Over time, and seeking something entirely different, he set sail with the US Navy in 1941 working as a civilian payroll contractor on Wake Island – a place that I had never heard of until the spring of 1969, while participating in this give-and-take question-and-answer process.

We soon learned that the island was bombed and strafed by the Japanese starting on December 8, 1941 - in tandem with the Pearl Harbor surprise attack. The sailors and Marines (along with several hundred private civilians) brazenly held out for two weeks, despite being vastly outnumbered, before their inevitable final surrender to the new enemy.  As a class, we struggled with the images Mr. Q. painted of hot steamy tarmacs where survivors lay sunburned and parched, having no choice but to drink gasoline-tainted water, all the while festering in the unrelenting South Pacific heat. The men, stripped of all dignity and suffering from thirst and malnourishment - not to mention basic medical care - were eventually shipped to POW camps in both China and Japan.  Mr. Q. was among them.

Over the course of our week-long interview our class of sophomores learned of the horrors and atrocities of life in a POW camp as we probed deeper.  Mr. Q. never flinched while addressing questions of his captors’ cruelty, grueling death-marches, starvation, disease, and his disdain for anyone who might snitch on a fellow in trouble.  There were also stories of ingenuity on the part of comrades securing more food, friendships, sacrifices and plain old luck that kept many men, including him, alive for three-and-a-half harrowing years.  You could sense that Mr. Q. placed loyalty to friends pretty high upon his list.

But he was so ill and malnourished by the time of liberation that Navy doctors gave him but six months to live.  He said that he never accepted that diagnosis.

At the end of our five-day interview, there was silence across the classroom. We were out of time.  We were out of questions. The bell rang and Mr. Q. slipped quietly out the door. Our final paper regarding his ordeal – to be written in a news story format – was due at the end of the following week.

 

It was one of the toughest written assignments that I have ever tackled – but without doubt the most memorable, despite painful, to write.

At the start of the following school year, our class merged with the seniors as we produced a weekly paper and worked on the annual.  Mr. Q. set a serious, yet liberating tone in the classroom, allowing us to write and proceed with paper and yearbook layout in our own fashion.  He acted as the benevolent, yet stern publisher, quick to criticize as well as praise any given piece.  The man brought in bags of hard-boiled quail eggs (as he raised the critters by the dozens apparently) every week.  I still have images of ‘Quille’s Kids’- as all of those loyal to this gaunt, fatherly figure came to be known - brushing small multi-colored egg shells off of desks as we laid out paper outlines of a sports or feature section for the next edition – many held in place by salt shakers and red and blue editing pencils.

There was a separate old break room next door where some of us gravitated to in order to sneak a coke or smoke or to whisper in private.  Mr. Q. pretended not to notice – as long as the paper produced quality writing and the annual was moving along on schedule.

As the school’s reporters, we needed to be off campus at times, so Mr. Q. not only provided us with the precious hall pass, signed by him – allowing us to do so, if questioned – but also stressed just how he signed his name in case of an emergency.

 

Said emergency presented itself to me in my senior year when I was detained by a history teacher as he rightly suspected that I had skipped half a day to spend at the beach.  And although the swim was in no way school related, I presented a forged Quille pass as my ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card’.

The instructor knew that my crummy writing was a forgery and marched me off to Mr. Q. in quick order, so that he could prove his claim and punish me accordingly.  Fine particles of sand fell from my bleached-out hair as we trudged down the stairs to the first floor.  

Quille was alone in a hallway when I was unceremoniously shoved his way.  When presented with the crumpled pass bearing a bad likeness of his signature, and pompously asked by my captor as to whether or not it was his, Mr. Q. studied the paper, looked at me – sunburned with guilt – and calmly told Mr. Wilson, ‘Yes.’

Wilson sputtered with rage as he demanded to know why he would so obviously lie in order to save me.  He mentioned something about ‘Quille’s Kids’ and misplaced loyalty before finally storming off.

Mr. Q. looked at me with his sad, yet all-too-familiar hangdog expression, and quietly said, “You need to work on your penmanship. I suggest a little practice before you try this again.”

Two decades then flew by.  

One night my phone rang and an uncle of another former ‘Quille Kid’ - gave me the sad news that his niece had died – an old friend with whom I had recently been in touch. He had found my number scribbled on her desk and thought that I should be made aware of her death so that I could alert any friends who might want to know. And although I had not spoken to Mr. Quille in twenty years, I immediately felt I needed to let him know - as he had always shown Anita great kindness in the past.

I eventually found his number and dialed.  His wife answered.  I explained who I was and the circumstances of my call.  She was gracious and said that she would get her husband on the line in just a moment, but could I please be aware that he might be a bit confused at times and to not take it personally if he did not recognize me.

Mr. Q. and I then spoke for the first time in twenty years, his low gravelly voice sounding tired and far away.  He valiantly tried to place me – and for a moment, I think he had a glimmer of the kid on whom he did not snitch - but time and long-overdue ailments from a ghastly ordeal of a bygone era were finally playing havoc with both his thought process as well as his body. Anita’s name seemed to confuse him even a bit more.

At the end he thanked me for the visit and suggested that I call again perhaps…

We hung up before I had a chance to properly thank him for instilling in me a love for words and editing and layout design – a fondness for hard-boiled salted quail eggs - a better understanding of a horrific war in the Pacific and the sacrifices made by men like him.

And lastly, I just wanted to thank him for teaching me the value of loyalty and for a story that I need to share.

Lawrence Quille, AHS Class of 1930

180

180

Noel Laflin

2-23-15

“We haven't got the man
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
We had when we began
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
But since your grandma came
She'll marry... what's his name?”

‘Tevye’s Dream,’ Fiddler on the Roof

You know, a good number of the stories that I tell you, dear reader, are not what I had originally intended to tell you at all.

Case in point: I recently wrote a piece about homesickness.  But what you don’t know - it was supposed to be about how I came to love classical music – and in particular, the music of a long-dead Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov.

So, just how the hell did the final piece, “Homesick Homily” then end up being so different from what I had originally titled, “Scheherazade Summer”?  To borrow an oft-repeated line from the movie, Shakespeare In Love, “It’s a mystery …”

Another recent story about “plans” – a brief trip down memory lane that pays homage to an old neighbor who once saw something in me long ago, started out as a tribute to an old high school journalism teacher. But the “plan” changed half-way through the telling; words rebelled, keystrokes rearranged themselves and the whole thing re-wired itself.  Now, I am still going to talk about that teacher someday –  as well as Rimsky-Korsakov perhaps, just not in these particular stories obviously.
 

This re-routing seems to happen to me all too often … It’s got to be some form of ADD perhaps. Oh, look, what’s that!

Now, many professional writers point out time and again that one should have a “clear objective” in mind before they begin to write.  Okay, yes, I usually do have a clear objective in mind when I sit to write.  Otherwise, what’s the point?

But all too frequently along the way – say into the second or third paragraph for example, my words decide to make a U-Turn on their own accord.  They often times disregard what my original route was altogether, cleverly unbuckle my seat belt, unceremoniously toss me headlong into the back seat, and head for a new destination. And they get so hyped up in the process.

Jesus!  They took the wheel! 

I do not know how to explain it, other than to say that the words just freakin’ take over – they (to personify the little fuckers) mutiny and take sudden command of my wordy vessel. Oh, the traveling metaphors are out of control now …

And like the poor milkman in Fiddler on the Roof, I haven’t got the man, I had when I began. (Please see the movie or catch a community performance of the musical if you are the least bit befuddled as to the referencing here).

But, I have to admit it now,  I kind of like the surprise.  The new guy turned out to be pretty interesting anyway.
 

And here is the strange part – I do not seem to mind.  In fact, I usually welcome the new direction as it suddenly becomes an unplanned trip – and you know how they are frequently the best kind of adventure of all.

Homesick Homily

        Homesick Homily 

   Noel Laflin 

  2-16-15

It was the distant strain of a melodious alto horn gently echoing across the old Camp Ahwahnee ravine that finally lulled me to sleep one star-filled summer night nearly fifty years ago.

This homesick lad never did learn the name of the haunting piece played that evening (but aren't all deeply sonorous horn tunes haunting?), nor was I ever one hundred percent certain as to the musician's identity (although I do have a hunch now) - but I have been forever grateful for that well-timed heady lullaby which finally set the disappointing day aright.

It seems strange now to think that I was homesick in a land that would become a second home for me in rather short order. But, that's how things stood on that mild July night in 1966, when I lay sprawled upon an ancient mattress, breathing in the mixed scent of pine and dust, staring out and up at the immense array of mountain stars shining through the open flaps of my tent - all the while crying for home.

I was lonesome, as I had only one friend to call upon in this strange new place, but he was bunking with others, so I was assigned a tent of my own.

I was also disappointed with myself as I had failed the swim test, upon my immediate arrival to camp earlier that day and was assigned a 'beginner' tag if I wanted to use the pool.

I was suddenly resentful of all these new assignments.

And to top it all off, the meal that evening was lamentably forgettable.

In short, by the end of that first day, I was feeling a bit blue and more than a little sorry for myself.

And then, as that mysterious horn began to play from far away, some sort of magical healing seemed to take hold, new dreams emerged, and I drifted off to a very peaceful sleep my first night on the mountain. Music put all to right somehow.

Suffice to say, things improved rapidly that week as I made friends and learned the proper way to do the side, back, and breaststroke. As an added benefit, even the mess hall food tasted better as the days flew by.

I quickly fell in love with the mountain, sought out mentoring from the older staff and relished both the new challenges as well as the freedom any thirteen-year-old would appreciate when presented with a beautiful, wild playground in which to grow, and learn, and explore.

And thus, I was irreversibly hooked on Ahwahnee by the end of that week and just to prove it, kept returning for the next ten years, even though I never caught wind of another nighttime serenade again.

Over time, I knew the signs to look for in kids feeling just a bit homesick on their first night in this strange, unfamiliar land.  Engaging them in activities or just plain old conversation usually got them over the urge of bolting for the nearest pay phone and sobbing for the folks to come take them home.

But I'm personally convinced that if I'd only learned to master the playing of a fine old brass horn, my job would have been infinitely easier.

Bedazzled

Bedazzled

Noel Laflin

2-11-15

When I was very young, we would take Saturday drives to visit my godparents.  They owned an orange grove - not far from where Angel stadium stands today.

These good folks had a son named Henry, who was just a bit older than my brother - and back then they were inseparable. But with these two young men being twice my age, I was seldom welcomed in their company, let alone their adventures – except for the day they invited me to their sanctuary deep within the old grove.

We were well out of grownup eyesight or earshot when the boys finally stopped walking, looked about carefully, and bent down to lift a well-camouflaged piece of plywood.  There was a dark tunnel hidden beneath the flimsy wood.

 They told me to wait above and be the lookout guy as they got on hands and knees and crawled, one after the other, into the narrow darkness below.  Before disappearing, Bob told me that I would get the all-clear in a couple of minutes and could then join them. 

 A few moments later, my brother’s head popped back up and he waved me in.  I slithered downward.  And like a promised afterlife, I could see light at the end of that tunnel, as it soon opened onto a large bedazzled cavern. It was then that my eyes grew wide in amazement as to just what these two boys had taken weeks to excavate.  The light was being produced by dozens of lit candles they had placed into the walls of the earth.  It sparkled down there like a beautiful sunken sanctuary.  Looking back on it, I am sure the whole works were incredibly unsafe and additionally hazardous with that many candles burning up all of the limited oxygen - but it was a sight to behold.  And I was transfixed – still thankful to this day for that unexpected gift from an older brother and his best friend.

I can’t recall the rest of the day, once all of those candles were extinguished, or what eventually even became of the hideaway, but the magic of that incredible image has been with me all of my life.  I spoke of the memory with my brother a couple of years back, after we received word that Henry had died.  Bob recalled the cave with fondness.

I sometimes wonder as to whether I had ever thanked those two for that illuminating day so long ago - a day perhaps when those boys felt that they had to share their creation with someone other than a parent, figuring that a parent would mostly likely have shut the whole project down.  Thus, they needed a kid to bear witness - and I drew the lucky straw.

 That awe-struck lucky witness, despite all the years hence, has never forgotten the light at the end of that tunnel, on a fine Saturday afternoon, hidden beneath an old orange grove now long gone – but not entirely forgotten.

Joining the Words

Joining the Words

Noel Laflin

2-5-15

I have never been much of a joiner.  Clubs tended to either let me down or politely ask me to leave.

Oh, sure, my youth was filled with groups: church, Scouting, and a decade devoted to summer camp staff membership took prominent stage back then.  But as I grew disillusioned with the first organization (agnostic by nature, I guess), was tossed rather unceremoniously out of the second (there was the gay thing, you see), and reluctantly had to leave the mountains of my boyhood in order to make a living in the adult world - group identity became less appealing over time.

But there has always been one institution less discriminating in character assessment, let alone the characters that seek membership: it’s the brotherhood of language.

 

The magical arrangement and joining of words in order to create language, and ultimately tell stories has always fascinated me.  If done properly – and with some decent thought put into the process – well, one can create a tale worth telling.  So, why do I frequently take a keyboard in hand - all the while wondering what the guy whose reflection in the screen before me really wants to say - and then try to arrange and rearrange enough words in order to tell a fable of interest?

Good question.

I am still working on that answer.  Ten years of journalism classes certainly played a part.  Growing up in a household filled with books and magazines of every interest was a definite boon as well. Encouraging parents, teachers, siblings, friends, and lovers also helped at critical stages in my development for this life-long fling with words.

But maybe, I just want to maintain membership within a club that truly holds my interest and does not let me down.  And if I am let down, the only guy to blame will be the one reflected in the screen before me.