Peter G. McClennan was a 60-something retired Presbyterian minister who would not consider relinquishing the pursuit of arcane knowledge and an enlightened existence just because he no longer filled a pulpit.
So, he became a high school English teacher.
Opinion
His days were not filled with deeds of momentous significance recognized by thousands. The hero I am remembering was just a man who showed up every day. A man who did the most mundane tasks. But in his hands, the mundane became exceptional.
As the result of very good fortune that I had absolutely nothing to do with, I ended up in Mr. McClennan’s English class when I was a junior at Salinas High School. And then, another happy chance put me right back in that group during my senior year.
I learned to write from a master who let me know that I mattered. Without undue fanfare, he became the litmus test of what a hero is.
There were no Advanced Placement classes in 1958 and 1959, of course, but there was a group of us kept together through the efforts of counselors who knew Mr. McClennan personified something that had much more to do with wisdom than education.
During class discussions, haphazard fragments of random thoughts and ideas were cast forward. Each was nondescript and of no intrinsic beauty or value in and of itself. But with nuanced guidance from the mind of a master, these pieces and patches each contributed their own strengths and passions toward a whole — when taken together, they formed something akin to a beautiful quilt.
I remember a discussion centering on capital punishment which was occasioned by the aftermath of an execution at San Quentin Prison. Our ideas were all over the map — from the sanctity of life to government-initiated murder and then to the Bible’s command: “Thou shalt not kill.” Somehow, in the midst of heated opinions expressed with passion, we saw and heard nuances that tempered our own sometimes self-righteous assurance that our ideas were the only valid conclusions to be had.
There could be (and often was) a brief surprised silence at the end of one of these verbal encounters as we who were rank amateurs at these mental gymnastics absorbed what had happened before our eyes: A creation was manifested of which we would have been incapable without him.
I don’t remember Mr. McClennan imposing his own thinking. I don’t remember him denigrating or minimizing. I remember him verbalizing that this was, in fact, our life’s work. And I feel, 65 years later, that I continue to learn from what was said, and what was left unsaid, in those class discussions with that small man who was always larger than life.
Literature? Oh, yeah. Under Mr. McClennan’s watching eye, I graduated from “Black Beauty” to Dostoyevsky. And I never looked back.
On a special shelf in my living room, I still have his copy of “The Possessed.” He brought it to class one day and offered it to me because he saw it as necessary to challenge my easy assumptions. As I slept that night, my little dog Micky chewed a corner off Mr. McClennan’s book. I quickly replaced it (thank goodness for the independent bookstore on Park Row in Salinas!) and, as a result, I have his book as a treasured memento of that especially significant relationship.
Without hesitation, this is the finest gift I received from that relationship: I learned to write while under Mr. McClennan’s rigorous tutelage.
He suffered no fools. He knew we were in his class because we were way beyond proficient in our mastery of the written English language. We were given the opportunity to demonstrate our creativity and ability to think critically every weekend and then hand in the resulting essay on Monday.
I vividly remember an essay he returned to me which had more red ink than usual. At first glance, I felt humiliated. Then, I read his remarks. I felt, quite possibly for the first time, that I was capable of writing something worthwhile. In his teacherly scrawl, in bright red ink, his words were, “Bunny, you have the rare gift of not only assembling words but imparting to your reader the feelings that give your words power and life.”
Our class also spent significant time studying poetry. Does that word automatically resonate as dull and boring? Not in Mr. McClennan’s hands. There was power and worth in every example of iambic pentameter when parsed by this man whose passion one could not help but grab onto and claim as one’s own. My favorite, “When Life’s Last Picture is Painted,” by Rudyard Kipling, remains taped to a cabinet in my kitchen right here in Modesto where I see it regularly, all these years later.
“When earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it! – lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet’s hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from – Magdalene, Peter and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one will work for the money, and no one shall work for the fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees it for the God of Things as They are!”
Most precious of all, Mr. McClennan let me know that I mattered to him. He extended himself when he could have done only what was necessary. He saw the potential, the imaginable, the treasure worth mining.
He was, and always will be, my hero. Just by showing up every day and being there, he made every day exceptional.
Greatness begins where necessity ends, you know.
Bunny Stevens lives in Modesto, her hometown, and has served on The Modesto Bee Community Advisory Board. She is the opening courtesy clerk at the Safeway supermarket on McHenry Avenue and an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. She has also been known to represent the Easter Bunny and Santa’s Elf for children of all ages. Reach her at BunnyinModesto@gmail.com
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