Her name was Miss McDowell (a speech by Morley Torgov)

This is the text of a speech given Saturday night by distinguished Canadian author Morley Torgov at Sault Collegiate Institute's 100th Anniversary Reunion Dinner and Dance.

Torgov is the author of six books, including A Good Place to Come From (adapted into a CBC mini-series) and The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick (made into a feature film and television series). He's a two-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour.

The following material appears by permission of the author.

It occurred to me, as I sat down to write the first of several drafts of this short speech, that I have lived for 75 of the 100 years we are gathered here to celebrate tonight.

I suppose that anyone who has lived three-score-and-fifteen years (to state it in Biblical terms) is entitled to consider himself or herself an expert on everything from garbage collection to brain surgery.

Speaking of which, in the city wherein I dwell, namely Toronto, it is easier these days to have your brain operated on than to have your garbage collected!

Mind you, that situation is bound to change as brain surgeons become unionized and insist upon job security, which means the government must find more and more brains that need to be operated on ... which in turn creates a problem of supply and demand since there is, as always, a critical shortage of brains in government circles.

But I digress.

Am I truly an expert on everything? The answer ... which I offer to you with every iota of modesty and humbleness I possess ... the answer is, yes, I am such an expert.

And just why am I so damn clever?

I am so damn clever because I have deliberately chosen to ignore History.

Now, please -- please! -- do not rush to remind me that those who ignore History are doomed to repeat it.

I've heard that adage ten thousand times and I'm here to tell you that if History teaches us anything, it's that this oft-repeated slogan is pure unadulterated humbug.

Let me explain why I say this.

I missed military service by six months in 1945 but was certainly more than old enough to rejoice in the universal resolve at the conclusion of World War II that never again would human beings tear one another apart in the name of some political or religious cause. That was in August 1945 when I was 17 going on 18.

Then came Korea.

Then Indo-China.

Then Viet Nam.

Then Yugoslavia, the troubles in the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan -- and so on and on.

And now I'm going on 75 and it's August 2002, and I wonder where has all our historical knowledge gotten us?

To what wonderful new Age of Enlightenment have we been elevated?

Well ... despite our ever-blossoming obsession with speed -- speed of communication, speed of transportation, speed even of consumption (a.k.a. fast food), we are not as far advanced from the Stone Age as we like to think.

Have I, at age 75, become a cranky old man?

You bet ...good and cranky.

I say to our technology-crazed world: "To hell with cell phones, and faxes, and e-mail, and 400 horsepower S.U.V.'s and global conglomerates."

The reality is, it's 2002, and "9/11" wasn't supposed to happen, tens of thousand of innocent people weren't supposed to be slaughtered all over this planet, tens of thousands of innocent people weren't supposed to lose their jobs over fraudulent accounting practices."

Too often we awaken at dawn to a world seen through a hangover -- a hangover induced by over-exposure to the previous day's bad news in foreign lands, and troubling events in our own land.

So ... study History night and day if you will ... or on the other hand ignore it completely.

No matter which course we choose, you and I ... all of us ... are doomed, it seems, to repeat it.

Who taught me this?

Her name was Miss McDowell, and she was my History teacher at S.C.I., in grades 11, 12, and 13.

And to my dying day I will never forget a scene that occurred in her classroom.

It was the morning of May 7, 1945 and she was in the middle of our history class when there came a sharp rap on the door and someone burst in with the news.

Germany had surrendered.

The war in Europe was over.

Without another word, the classroom emptied in seconds as students poured into the halls to celebrate our victory over the Nazis.

Two persons only remained in the room -- Miss McDowell was one, I was the other.

It is the look on that marvellous woman's aged face that is etched deeply into my memory.

Don't ask me why I remained in my seat. Perhaps I was simply too stunned to move (let's face it, mobility and agility were never my strong suits.)

But there I sat, and Miss McDowell looked across the classroom at me with a peculiar smile that was part relief (but not elation), part restraint, part sadness, part sardonic.

And I sensed then -- and am certain now -- what she was thinking.

She was thinking: This is not the end of humankind's troubles. We will repeat our mistakes.

And she was right.

She was so right.

But hold on! There's good news!

After all, we're not here tonight to wallow in gloom and doom, are we?

Well, here's the good news. I will forever relish the teaching and memories of the greatest instructors I ever had ... great teachers at S.C.I. like McDowell, and Jessie Irving, and Keith Mather, and my music teacher John Blackburn.

And I will never ever fail to recall that sunniest of sunny days when a long laconic stringbean of a man by the name of Tipton, ignoring my total ineptitude at anything athletic, invited me to call him "Tom."

I went home that day floating on a cloud.

In a sense, I've never come down to earth.

**************************************************************************** Click here for another photo of Torgov enjoying himself in the Sault.