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Frank said that to be a teacher, "one must leave one's ego at the door." He was humble, wise, funny, generous and unorthodox. He was mentor and teacher to me and the most popular guest at the Litchfield County Writers Project/UConn Torrington campus. In many ways he made the world aware of the existence of LCWP. Whenever he was a guest here, our lecture hall was always filled to capacity.
Speaking for an article in 2005 for The New York Times about the LCWP, he said, "If the university had paid me nothing, I still would have done it." He continued to return to the campus, and was to be a guest last April for our "Literary Prize Winners of Litchfield County" but had to cancel due to illness. Several hundred people-there was always a waiting list-were saddened, but sent their prayers and good wishes to him.
During one of these visits, he said, "On the last day of my teaching career, I was sitting in my apartment having a glass of wine, thinking 'I'm glad I did it,' that I had been somehow useful, that I had learned something." Teachers and students roared with delight and cheered as he gave us classroom stories, though he felt there was a need for great improvement in education in this country and in the way teachers are viewed. "Teaching," he said, "is the downstairs maid of professions," and he reminded teachers to remember that, "Story-telling is teaching" and to, "Leave your ego at the door ... . You can't get away with being a phony." My admiration and love for this man goes far beyond his being a successful writer. He was a true teacher and no phony-in a classroom or out of it.
His advice to my students was, "Start scribbling and take those adjectives out." He also told them that, "Education and writing are a process of liberation. Education is liberation of the mind from fear, and the pursuit of wisdom." At the end of his last visit he said that he always wanted to give poetry a try but he didn't think he could get it published. "On my tombstone I always wanted it to say, 'Here lays Frank McCourt, Poet. But it's not going to happen-because I'm going to be cremated.'" Amid the laughter, he followed up with what he said was his only poem.
The poem he recited was "The Reading Habits of American Presidents," and it goes like this:
When Eisenhower was president he'd end each weary day
Relaxing in his bedroom with a volume of Zane Gray.
Right after him came Kennedy who liked to read Stendhal
But crafty Lyndon Johnson read the writing on the wall.
There is a Buddhist philosophy that suggests that an individual needs great faith, great doubt, and perseverance. Frank McCourt had all three. He said once that his one virtue was doggedness: "Not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still it was the one thing that got me through the days and nights." To me, he had intellect and charm and was, if not glamorous, a most handsome, gentle man.
Over my desk at home are two photographs of people who inspire me. One is of my drama professor in college, Fletcher Collins Jr., who died a few years ago at 98, and the other is of Frank McCourt.
