R.I.P. Mr. Bluestreak

"There'll be no sorrow there,
No more burdens to bear,
No more sickness, no pain,
No more parting over there;
And forever I will be,
With the One who died for me,
What a day, glorious day that will be."  (excerpt from the hymn, What a Day That Will Be)



My sixth grade teacher, who later became my geography teacher, died yesterday.  I had not yet picked out a topic for today's post and couldn't get him off my mind so I think I'll write about him a little.  He was a big,  stubborn, ornery man.  His name, Carl Edward Orrell.  He went by Ed.  He would always say his name like this, "O, double R, E, double L."  I can just hear him saying it in my head.

He was difficult at times, loved to pick on people and was ALL about study guides.  Oh my, we had study guides for everything.  And I now understand why.  He created them, filed them away and copied them year after year after year.  Not a bad idea, necessarily.  Quite frankly, if you did the study guide, corrected your wrong answers and studied that stupid thing, you would do pretty well on his tests.  It took me a while, but I figured that out.

If you remember in the post about Jay and I and our history together, Mr. Orrell was the teacher who had us write down who we thought we would marry and seal it away in an envelope, which he kept.  He always teased me about that.  I certainly never forgot it either.  I was 11 years old then.  Who'd have thought?

Our schools are divided into two, basically.  We have a school for K-6 and another for 7-12.  He was our sixth grade teacher and at some point moved over to the high school and taught Geography and maybe Social Studies or World History.  I know I had him for Geography and perhaps a study hall.  He was also our assistant high school football coach...maybe defensive coordinator or something fancy like that.  I do remember us being pretty decent in football when I was in high school and I do remember that he knew what he was doing when it came to football.  He was always a pretty good sport for us cheerleaders.  After all, he was MR BLUESTREAK, and he would get dressed up and 'perform' at our pep rallies.

I can't tell you when, but somehow I became friends with his daughter.  She was a Warrior, you see, a student at Casey-Westfield High School, our natural born enemy....but we looked past that and were and still are friends.  She was a ball of fun.  I don't know, maybe it made me like Mr. Orrell a little more, knowing he had such a great, fun, terrific daughter.  (She doesn't even read this, so I'm being honest).  His wife was pretty special too, such a sweetheart, a nurse.  His wife treated my grandparents a time or two and they adored her.  

He has had a long, hard fight with several health issues over the past 10-15 years approximately.  Every time I would see him out and about, I was amazed, quite frankly, that he was still pushing along...but he always was a very stubborn, strong-willed force.  After a very difficult summer, the prayer requests this weekend from his daughter were for peace and comfort.  He is/was a believer.  God answered the prayers.  What a glorious day...

To be perfectly honest, at the time way back when, he drove me nuts and was not necessarily my favorite teacher.   Of course, I'm sure I was not the model student I would like to pretend I was either.  Sometimes I would just want to strangle him (I bet the feeling wasn't mutual at all) and probably said some not so nice things about him.  I look back now and realize that I really did have a lot of respect for him.  It saddens me that he has had to suffer like he has.  It saddens me that his family has had to watch him suffer so much.  They truly are great people.  I hope they know this, he was a great example to many of us "Bluestreaks."  He fought hard to the bitter end.  He will be missed.  I know I will never forget him.