Guy Nelson, recently retired founding member of the Brother Martin teaching staff, is writing his memoirs. Here's an excerpt about the first time he actually met Brother Martin Hernandez, S.C.
Brother Martin was a dynamic leader, a man none of the St. Aloysius students who knew him, or for that matter, anyone who ever met him, soon forgot. He never officially worked at Brother Martin High School, but he was the Provincial of the New Orleans province of the brothers during the years leading to the consolidation of the two schools. He would usually refer to Brother Martin High School as "that school on Elysian Fields," though clearly his educational leadershipo was a cornerstone of its foundation.
I did not get to know Brother Martin personally until the 1980's during the three years I was not in the classroom, working instead in the Devel opment Office as Community Relations Director. I would often be the one to meet him when he came to school for a visit, and I still have a sharp picture in my memory of the friendliness of this short, powerful man in the straw cowboy hat, who called those he met "podna." On one visit I walked with him to the Brothers' Residence (now the location of the Meyer Building), where he told me he wanted "to visit the old brothers." I joked with him, "Wait a minute. I thought you were the old brother?" His answer - "Nah, podna, you're only old if you think you are." - was the perfect answer from the eighty-seven year old whose basic principle is inscribed on the walls of the lobby of "that school." "We are not here to teach a boy how to make a living but how to make a life."
