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Awarded several medals for bravery, along with a Purple Heart, for a severe leg wound he’d received as he and fellow marines fought in the jungles of Iwo Jima

The Goodness Of Goggles Gordon



When our new geometry teacher entered the classroom, we high school seniors almost laughed out loud. Well over six feet tall, Mr. Gordon was skeleton skinny, his clothes hung on him like a suit on a scarecrow, he walked with a wobbly limp, and the meek expression on his thin, bony face, along with his subdued, kindly tone of voice, convinced us he was a wimp. How wrong we were. To keep his thick, black-framed eyeglasses — which earned him the nickname “Goggles” — from sliding down his nose, he wrapped rubber bands on the stems behind his ears.
One day he was greeted by the following message written in large letters on the chalkboard: WELCOME TO GOGGLESVILLE, POPULATION ONE GORDON. For a long time, he stood with his back to us. Then, he drooped his shoulders, exhaled loudly, and erased the message, never saying a word. In our next meeting, a boy used a small slingshot to fire a wad of paper at Mr. Gordon, whose back was turned to us. What happened next stunned the class into pin-drop silence. The projectile struck one of Mr. Gordon’s eyeglass stems right behind his ear. He flinched and stopped writing. Finally, he turned, stared stonily at the suspected perpetrator, and then removed his glasses. “Hmmm, looks like one of my rubber bands broke,” he said. He replaced it, and resumed drawing geometric illustrations. We were certain he knew who committed the wrongful act, and had he sent him to the principal’s office, the boy would likely have expelled from school. From that day on, we didn’t view him as a wimp, but respected him for what he really was: a good man.

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Our respect for him grew

Our respect for him grew even more when we learned that he had been awarded several medals for bravery, along with a Purple Heart, for a severe leg wound he’d received as he and fellow marines fought in the jungles of Iwo Jima. Crippled for life, he returned home and resumed dating his high school sweetheart. Shortly after they married, she fell victim to leukemia, and suffered many years before passing away. During all those years, he took care of her every need, right up to the end, and every week after her death he placed a bouquet of flowers on her grave. In his marriage as in other aspects of his life he demonstrated what he really was: a good man. He never passed up an opportunity to be good to us students. His office door was always open, and he was always willing to do whatever had to be done to help us complete our studies. Mr. Gordon died a few years after we graduated, and a group of us attended the funeral. As he was lowered into a grave beside his wife, we realized how blessed we were to have had such a man for a teacher during our most formative years. We matured into better human beings, in large part because of the goodness of Goggles Gordon.


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Jimmy Reed -- Bio and Archives

Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.

This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.

Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).


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