Titles of Authority

I attended a wonderful college at Rexburg, Idaho for one golden semester in the fall of 1973.

It was as long as I could manage to be away from my family.

Have I mentioned I'm a wuss?

Well, I am.

I was so homesick during those endless four months that I could have died.

I even wrote an article about being homesick that was picked up by the local paper.

I still think the tear-stains on the paper were the real sell.

Moving on . . .

During my time at college, I studied Physical Education.

Really.

I actually took classes in Soccer, Interpretive Dance, Track and Field, and Swimming.

Did you know they offer college level courses in those things?

Yeah. I didn't either.

It was a fun semester.

To round things out, I had to take some other remedial courses.

Chosen from a list.

And including such things as . . . English Language Arts.

And one or more sciences.

I chose Astronomy.

Because Zoology was filled up.

For an entire semester, I studied the stars.

We even went out in the evenings and, with the help of large telescopes, mapped the heavens.

It was . . . fun.

Our instructor for the class was a man named Brother Greg.

Oh, I should mention, here, that this was a Christian school and that we called each other brother and sister.

Even the instructors.

Soo . . . Brother Greg.

Brother Greg was a wonderful man.

Knowledgeable.

Kind.

Patient.

Let's face it, when you are shepherding a group of seventy or more students around, you'd have to have a good dose of all three.

And he answered every one of the questions I put to him.

Smiling quietly and nodding whenever my hand shot up accompanied by, “Brother Greg! Brother Greg!”

I enjoyed my Astronomy class.

I even earned a reputable grade.

And it was then that my world stood still. As well as all of the stars and planets I had been studying.

Because when Brother Greg handed out our final papers, with our grade prominently displayed, I got the biggest shock of the semester.

Brother Greg's name was Brother Nelson.

Brother Nelson?

Where on earth did I get Greg . . .? Oh. Brother Greg Nelson.

On the very first day of class, when I had been writing things down, I had started to write his name and was interrupted.

Thus, he became Brother Greg.

To this day, I wonder how I went through an entire semester without realizing that everyone . . . everyone . . . in the class was calling him something else.

I know the class was Astronomy, but was my head literally in the clouds?

Because he was such a nice man, he never corrected the weird student from Canada who insisted on calling him by his first name.

And neither did the other sixty-nine kids in the class.

Perhaps they snickered behind their hands whenever my hand went up.

Maybe (and this is a faint hope) they never noticed.

Oh, well, as least my grades were good.

Today, I couldn't tell you a single thing taught that semester.

Except for what I learned on the very last day.

And that, I simply can't forget.