Mr. Kayl swears like a sailor.
He drinks beer with numerous buddies, hisses, throws erasers at students, and sometimes - absorbed in his own consuming thoughts - grunts at me in the GICC hallway as if I am nothing but a pesky housefly. Usually I let this pass. After all, I've known Pat Kayl nearly all my life and am accustomed to the way he turns off the world to focus solely on the dilemma of the leak in the ceiling of the old gym. Or the leak in the cafeteria. Or the leak in the second floor art room.
Just one time do I let him have it.
"Hey!" I snap. "Is it too much trouble to look me in the eye and be nice for once?"
Immediately he stops. I see the bewilderment and the way his eyes finally focus and adapt to his present surroundings.
"I'm so sorry," he apologizes, horrified by his behavior. "Don't know how in the world I didn't see you."
Of course he doesn't. Pat Kayl is our absent-minded professor. If he stares off into space during the middle of a chemistry lecture, you wait patiently for him to return - he always does. If he loops his right arm over the top of his head to mindlessly scratch his left ear, it means he's misplaced either his coffee cup or a sophomore boy with glasses.
And it's a complete myth that Mr. Kayl ever wears a pocket protector. Why else would his shirt, threadbare and half tucked, be stained with ink, avocado dip and sodium thiosulfate?
I meet Mr. Kayl for the first time at Central Catholic High School when I am a nervous 16-year-old. My family has just moved from Denver to Grand Island, Nebraska - a strange, foreign place my siblings and I have never even heard of. That first day of school on a warm September morning, petrified and homesick for Denver, I am introduced to Mr. Kayl and learn that he will be my advisor. In spite of my misery, I nearly snort. This shy, skinny man-boy masquerading as a science teacher is my moral authority?
On that inauspicious day, I am not to know that Pat and his elfin wife Julie, a GICC English teacher, will be not only my mentors but my best friends for the next 46 years. In fact, I only feel a little sorry for Mr. Kayl. Father Hoelck one day has to rescue him from the ornery senior boys who manhandle and drag him into the boys' bathroom to give him a dousing bath. Mr. Kayl only laughs. He loves his students, and they love him. Those ornery boys will bear hug Pat at their 30 and 40 year reunions, and kids like Don Leifeld and Dick Smith will become his devoted and life long friends.
When I return to GICC after college to teach in 1977, Pat and Julie take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Their beautiful boy Eric is 8-years-old, and Julie is weeks away from delivering John. A few years later their only daughter Andrea - an enchanting, dark-haired infant with big dark eyes like her brothers - is born.
When I meet and marry John Howard, the school's new social studies teacher, Pat is in our wedding, and he and Julie - along with our other dearest friends Hugh and Fran Brandon - become our son Kenny's godparents. We rely on Pat for so much.
At Grand Island Central Catholic, he's the go-to guy for anything and everything. Often he disappears from class after a frantic call from the office.
"Mr. Kayl!" Sister Mary Leo, shrieks through the P.A. system. "The furnace just gave out!"
Whatever the problem, Pat's the man to fix it. And it's not just our broken down old heating system or the falling tiles in the gym or the sagging roof over the lobby. All of us call on Pat for help. Every Husker Harvest Days, he's in his element erecting buildings for our school food stands. For years he's the prom sponsor and helps construct mini-bridges or promenades transforming the old gym into a magical wonderland. He's the only guy who knows how to operate the ancient sound system during school musicals and graduations and spring concerts.
As well, John and I and all his friends rely on his help. One summer he repairs the wood floors in our dining room. Tommy, our nine-year-old son, sits cross-legged with his chin in fists fascinated by Pat's careful and precise alignments of every floor board.
"Man," Tommy tells us later. "Mr. Kayl knows ten different ways to say SH__T," he shakes his head in wonder.
Pat's classroom is a disaster - a hoarder's paradise. Twenty-year-old television sets are herded together on the counters for curious Electricity Class students to tear into and explore. In need of repair, large board games for Karnival Kapers, our school's big fundraiser, lie haphazardly all over the floor. Only the chemicals are stored carefully away - otherwise every item from every garage sale and science fair litters Mr. Kayl's room. First time visitors are visibly shocked when they enter the science room, and Pat sheepishly scratches his head.
"Gotta clean this damn room," he apologizes. "Maybe this summer."
Julie is every bit the hoarder also, but miraculously she and Pat know where everything is - both in their classrooms and at home - which is filled to the brim with every antique collectible you could think of.
In spite of the limited space in their stuffed-to-the-gills home, there's no place John and I and our friends would rather be than hanging out at the Kayls. One night at dinner, our good friend and principal Hugh Brandon steals little Andrea Kayl's pillow in its pristine Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase to lounge on the Kayls' living room floor. Seven-year-old Andrea is astonished to walk into the middle of her living room to see Hugh's big head squashing and mangling her beloved pillow.
"Dad!" she chastises Pat. "I told you NEVER to let Mr. Brandon use my Strawberry Shortcake pillow!" Then she bursts into tears, sprints out the front door, and hides under the old camper in the Kayls' driveway to cry her heart out.
Pat crawls on hands and knees under the low camper to apologize and gently soothe his enraged little daughter. It's the same voice he uses to soothe troubled parents, students and fellow teachers. Finally, Andrea comes back to the house to snatch her pillow from our big penitent school principal and return it to its proper place. Order is restored.
I don't know a happier family than the Kayls - until the tragic loss of their 25-year-old son Eric in November, 1994. Julie calls to tell me, and I can barely absorb the news. John and I immediately rush to their house, and I sit close to Julie on the couch gripping her hand. We stare at each other in wordless shock while John grabs Pat in an awkward hug. Then Pat shoves his hands into his pockets and cannot look up again from the floor.
I am afraid Pat and Julie will never come back to us. After many years, Julie makes peace with the death of her precious Eric, but Pat never does. It's the one broken piece of his life Mr. Kayl can't fix.
He and Julie continue to teach through the decades, and John and Andrea grow up to be fine, exceptional people. Andrea, in spite of a visual impairment like her mother's, becomes a college professor in Las Vegas, and John joins the military, marries his lovely Darcy, and gives Pat and Julie three grandchildren. More than anything, Pat's kids and grandkids offer him comfort.
In 2011 when Pat and Julie decide to retire, I can hardly take it in.
"I suppose I'll never see you again," I whine to Julie. Life at Grand Island Central Catholic without Pat and Julie Kayl seems unthinkable. I am a little inconsolable.
"No, never," she shoots back. "Our friendship is now completed. Good luck and godspeed," she jokes.
They enjoy retirement, but Pat is always back at school to help with Karnival Kapers, Husker Harvest Days and the never ending quirks of the sound system.
I can almost imagine, even though a new science teacher inhabits the spaces of his old classroom, that Pat is still here. To see him roaming the hallways is familiar and safe and comforting.
Last year, however, he loses weight and begins to feel weary. Not long after he's diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Julie is upbeat and positive - she always is - and can make us believe Pat will be fine. Their good friends and neighbors Les and Dee Lucht drive them to doctor appointments and take care of their yard. Julie assures us Pat will soon be driving and mowing his own lawn.
"All is well!" she chimes.
Except it's not.
A few weeks ago, Pat catches pneumonia. It's only a slight case, Julie says, but Pat's fragile body cannot fight it. In a matter of days he's unresponsive and attached to a ventilator. His good children, John and Andrea, arrive immediately and sit with Julie who sleeps on the little couch near Pat's hospital bed every night. They are with him when the ventilator is removed. Pat takes three breaths and leaves forever this world and all of us.
We receive word of Pat's death at school, and after the day is over I make my way down to Mr. Kayl's old room. Standing in the doorway, I smell and take in the empty classroom. Even though it's inhabited by another teacher now and so clean I can barely stand it, it's still and always will be Mr. Kayl's classroom. I can see him in front of his chalk board scribbling undecipherable words from edge to edge before he scratches his head and loses himself looking out the window at other unseen worlds.
Pat Kayl is our saint - not a saint in the usual sense, like the ones who have visions and hear God's voice instructing them to build Cathedrals. Instead he is our flawed, beer-drinking, cigarette smoking, muttering, grumpy, much loved old saint. Mr. Kayl is the kind of saint who drops everything to help you out of a jam, makes every student feel like his own kid, and who would offer any one of us the threadbare, stained, untucked shirt off his back.
Goobye for now, Old Man. Don't forget us.
And keep your damn room clean.
He drinks beer with numerous buddies, hisses, throws erasers at students, and sometimes - absorbed in his own consuming thoughts - grunts at me in the GICC hallway as if I am nothing but a pesky housefly. Usually I let this pass. After all, I've known Pat Kayl nearly all my life and am accustomed to the way he turns off the world to focus solely on the dilemma of the leak in the ceiling of the old gym. Or the leak in the cafeteria. Or the leak in the second floor art room.
 |
| Pat and Julie, November 2017 |
"Hey!" I snap. "Is it too much trouble to look me in the eye and be nice for once?"
Immediately he stops. I see the bewilderment and the way his eyes finally focus and adapt to his present surroundings.
"I'm so sorry," he apologizes, horrified by his behavior. "Don't know how in the world I didn't see you."
Of course he doesn't. Pat Kayl is our absent-minded professor. If he stares off into space during the middle of a chemistry lecture, you wait patiently for him to return - he always does. If he loops his right arm over the top of his head to mindlessly scratch his left ear, it means he's misplaced either his coffee cup or a sophomore boy with glasses.
And it's a complete myth that Mr. Kayl ever wears a pocket protector. Why else would his shirt, threadbare and half tucked, be stained with ink, avocado dip and sodium thiosulfate?
I meet Mr. Kayl for the first time at Central Catholic High School when I am a nervous 16-year-old. My family has just moved from Denver to Grand Island, Nebraska - a strange, foreign place my siblings and I have never even heard of. That first day of school on a warm September morning, petrified and homesick for Denver, I am introduced to Mr. Kayl and learn that he will be my advisor. In spite of my misery, I nearly snort. This shy, skinny man-boy masquerading as a science teacher is my moral authority?
 |
| Mr. Kayl, 1972 |
When I return to GICC after college to teach in 1977, Pat and Julie take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Their beautiful boy Eric is 8-years-old, and Julie is weeks away from delivering John. A few years later their only daughter Andrea - an enchanting, dark-haired infant with big dark eyes like her brothers - is born.
When I meet and marry John Howard, the school's new social studies teacher, Pat is in our wedding, and he and Julie - along with our other dearest friends Hugh and Fran Brandon - become our son Kenny's godparents. We rely on Pat for so much.
At Grand Island Central Catholic, he's the go-to guy for anything and everything. Often he disappears from class after a frantic call from the office.
"Mr. Kayl!" Sister Mary Leo, shrieks through the P.A. system. "The furnace just gave out!"
Whatever the problem, Pat's the man to fix it. And it's not just our broken down old heating system or the falling tiles in the gym or the sagging roof over the lobby. All of us call on Pat for help. Every Husker Harvest Days, he's in his element erecting buildings for our school food stands. For years he's the prom sponsor and helps construct mini-bridges or promenades transforming the old gym into a magical wonderland. He's the only guy who knows how to operate the ancient sound system during school musicals and graduations and spring concerts.
As well, John and I and all his friends rely on his help. One summer he repairs the wood floors in our dining room. Tommy, our nine-year-old son, sits cross-legged with his chin in fists fascinated by Pat's careful and precise alignments of every floor board.
"Man," Tommy tells us later. "Mr. Kayl knows ten different ways to say SH__T," he shakes his head in wonder.
Pat's classroom is a disaster - a hoarder's paradise. Twenty-year-old television sets are herded together on the counters for curious Electricity Class students to tear into and explore. In need of repair, large board games for Karnival Kapers, our school's big fundraiser, lie haphazardly all over the floor. Only the chemicals are stored carefully away - otherwise every item from every garage sale and science fair litters Mr. Kayl's room. First time visitors are visibly shocked when they enter the science room, and Pat sheepishly scratches his head.
"Gotta clean this damn room," he apologizes. "Maybe this summer."
Julie is every bit the hoarder also, but miraculously she and Pat know where everything is - both in their classrooms and at home - which is filled to the brim with every antique collectible you could think of.
In spite of the limited space in their stuffed-to-the-gills home, there's no place John and I and our friends would rather be than hanging out at the Kayls. One night at dinner, our good friend and principal Hugh Brandon steals little Andrea Kayl's pillow in its pristine Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase to lounge on the Kayls' living room floor. Seven-year-old Andrea is astonished to walk into the middle of her living room to see Hugh's big head squashing and mangling her beloved pillow.
"Dad!" she chastises Pat. "I told you NEVER to let Mr. Brandon use my Strawberry Shortcake pillow!" Then she bursts into tears, sprints out the front door, and hides under the old camper in the Kayls' driveway to cry her heart out.
Pat crawls on hands and knees under the low camper to apologize and gently soothe his enraged little daughter. It's the same voice he uses to soothe troubled parents, students and fellow teachers. Finally, Andrea comes back to the house to snatch her pillow from our big penitent school principal and return it to its proper place. Order is restored.
I don't know a happier family than the Kayls - until the tragic loss of their 25-year-old son Eric in November, 1994. Julie calls to tell me, and I can barely absorb the news. John and I immediately rush to their house, and I sit close to Julie on the couch gripping her hand. We stare at each other in wordless shock while John grabs Pat in an awkward hug. Then Pat shoves his hands into his pockets and cannot look up again from the floor.
I am afraid Pat and Julie will never come back to us. After many years, Julie makes peace with the death of her precious Eric, but Pat never does. It's the one broken piece of his life Mr. Kayl can't fix.
He and Julie continue to teach through the decades, and John and Andrea grow up to be fine, exceptional people. Andrea, in spite of a visual impairment like her mother's, becomes a college professor in Las Vegas, and John joins the military, marries his lovely Darcy, and gives Pat and Julie three grandchildren. More than anything, Pat's kids and grandkids offer him comfort.
 |
| Pat and Julie's grandchildren: Ava, Balen and Edwin. |
In 2011 when Pat and Julie decide to retire, I can hardly take it in.
"I suppose I'll never see you again," I whine to Julie. Life at Grand Island Central Catholic without Pat and Julie Kayl seems unthinkable. I am a little inconsolable.
"No, never," she shoots back. "Our friendship is now completed. Good luck and godspeed," she jokes.
They enjoy retirement, but Pat is always back at school to help with Karnival Kapers, Husker Harvest Days and the never ending quirks of the sound system.
I can almost imagine, even though a new science teacher inhabits the spaces of his old classroom, that Pat is still here. To see him roaming the hallways is familiar and safe and comforting.
Last year, however, he loses weight and begins to feel weary. Not long after he's diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Julie is upbeat and positive - she always is - and can make us believe Pat will be fine. Their good friends and neighbors Les and Dee Lucht drive them to doctor appointments and take care of their yard. Julie assures us Pat will soon be driving and mowing his own lawn.
"All is well!" she chimes.
Except it's not.
A few weeks ago, Pat catches pneumonia. It's only a slight case, Julie says, but Pat's fragile body cannot fight it. In a matter of days he's unresponsive and attached to a ventilator. His good children, John and Andrea, arrive immediately and sit with Julie who sleeps on the little couch near Pat's hospital bed every night. They are with him when the ventilator is removed. Pat takes three breaths and leaves forever this world and all of us.
We receive word of Pat's death at school, and after the day is over I make my way down to Mr. Kayl's old room. Standing in the doorway, I smell and take in the empty classroom. Even though it's inhabited by another teacher now and so clean I can barely stand it, it's still and always will be Mr. Kayl's classroom. I can see him in front of his chalk board scribbling undecipherable words from edge to edge before he scratches his head and loses himself looking out the window at other unseen worlds.
 |
| Pat Kayl, 1946 - 2017 |
Goobye for now, Old Man. Don't forget us.
And keep your damn room clean.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the personal and touching blog you wrote for Pat Kayl. It is clear how much he meant to you and your family. As you know, he has indelibly affected so many countless lives that it is impossible to quantify. Here I am, 30 plus years later, sitting in my living room in Chicago, reading about a place and people so far removed by time and space, yet, this time in my life is imprinted on my heart and soul. I will never forget my time in his class. Further, Pat and Julie Kayl, and so many teachers and staff at the Grand Island Central Catholic community, have given so much to so many. I am so honored to have been taught by Mr. and Mrs. Kayl and look back on my years at Central Catholic as some of the best years of my life. God has a special place in heaven for people like Pat Kayl, and while he will be greatly missed here on earth, knowing him, he will continue to touch lives in special ways.
ReplyDeleteJames Cannon '86
PERFECT!
ReplyDelete