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CRIMSON SHIELD
THE ONLINE MAGAZINE OF BROTHER MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL |
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January 2012
Published Monthly September through May |
Guy Nelson 2011
Guy Nelson 1969
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Guy Nelson's path to becoming a member of the original faculty at Brother Martin in 1969 was not a straight line.
- Guy attended Mater Dolorosa School on Carrollton Avenue, just a few blocks from his home.
- The Christian Brothers taught the 7th and 8th grade boys at the school. So Guy took the streetcar and went to De La Salle for 9th grade on an academic scholarship.
- After one year on St. Charles Avenue, he transferred to St. Joseph Minor Seminary at St. Benedict LA north of Covington for the rest of his high school career.
- Guy recalls: "It was only after I decided to go to the seminary that my father told me that he had gone to the seminary as did his father."
Guy stayed at St. Ben's five years.
- He attended two years of college there with the objective of becoming a diocesan priest.
- His favorite subject was math, but he also excelled as a writer, which the Benedictines capitalized on by having him pen articles for The Clarion Herald. Also Guy took English courses at Tulane for two summers.
- "When I finished my sophomore year of college, I was ready to leave. I thought, 'I don't think this is for me.' I was getting more interested in English."
Wondering if his views were affected by spending five years "in the country," he transferred to Notre Dame Seminary near his old Carrollton neighborhood.
- The change was fortuitous since his father died, and he could go back and forth of take care of his mom.
- But the thought that God was calling him to teach took hold.
- So he left the seminary after a year and completed his degree at Tulane. "I had in the back of my mind teaching in a Catholic college since I didn't take education courses" (that he would need for a high school teaching certificate).
He graduated in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.
- "I didn't have enough money to work on a master's degree." So he needed to find a job.
- He signed a contract to teach English at Jesuit (his third Carrollton Avenue institution).
- However, the first of several fortuitous events intervened. The principal called him before school started and told him he had to rescind the contract because a Jesuit priest returning from the missions had been assigned to teach English on Banks Street.
- Guy landed a position at Holy Rosary School. "I taught there a year, but it was time to go on to high school."
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St. Aloysius and Cor Jesu merged in the summer of '69.
- Brother Mark Thornton, S.C., the first principal of Brother Martin, interviewed Guy for a teaching position. He also had offers from Holy Cross and De La Salle.
- "I was taking graduate courses at UNO that summer. A couple of Brother Martin teachers were there, Jim Raymond and Brother Collin Dugas. Also three from Holy Cross including Jack McCollum" (who later taught at Brother Martin). Brother Collin and Jack were the English chairs at their respective schools.
- "De La Salle wanted me to sign a five-year contract. I said, 'I'm not doing that.'"
- "The more I thought about it, the more I leaned toward Holy Cross. I didn't know much about Brother Martin because it was new."
- So he signed the Holy Cross contract and drove to the campus on the Industrial Canal to turn it in.
That's when several more coincidences changed his course.
- Arriving at Holy Cross, Guy couldn't find the principal. "I'm walking around on the levee with the contract. So I got in my car. I didn't have a plan."
- He ended up driving down Elysian Fields toward the Lake. As he approached 4401 Elysian Fields, who should be standing in front of the school but Brother Mark. He saw Guy and waved him over.
- "I thought you were going to sign the contract," Brother said.
- "Let me be honest," Guy told him. "I really wanted to teach English, and you told me I'd have four English classes and one religion. But when I got the contract, you had me for three religions and two Englishes."
- "That's no problem," Brother Mark responded. "Give me the contract." Guy got it out of the glove compartment (he just happened to have it with him). Brother Mark put it on the back of Guy's car and amended the class schedule. Then Guy signed it.
- Did he think of that day's events as acts of God? "I did feel, 'This is where I'm supposed to be.'"
So Guy taught in the Brother Martin English Department alongside his buddy, Jim Raymond.
- After just one year, Jim left for graduate school at the University of Texas.
- A year later, having finished his Master's at UNO, Guy joined Jim in Austin to work on a doctorate with a view to teaching English in college.
- More unexpected happenings caused yet another change of course.
Guy Nelson tutors Brent Widmer and Charles Furlan in 1970-1. To be continued ...
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Jim Raymond 1969
Brother Collin Dugas, S.C. 1969
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