He was a great man, a great principal

I was chatting with a friend of Mike Gordon's a few months ago. He told me Mr. Gordon wasn't doing well, and might die soon. I call him "Mr. Gordon" because that is how I mainly knew him — as my children's principal at Maplehurst Elementary School. Mr. Gordon was a great principal for many reasons. When I was an elementary school student in New Jersey, my principal was a scary human being. To be called to the principal's office always meant something bad. But Mr. Gordon called kids to his office for "good news" — because they had done something good. He was not scary at all. Mr. Gordon had given up being a high school principal — what some might think is a more prestigious, fancier position — to be someone to look up to at Maplehurst Elementary. He knew how to juggle — he taught my son that skill. He personally took a look at the tiny bug I had captured on my daughter's head and saved in a margarine tub, and explained to me that my daughter had a case of head lice. Three of my children were students at Maplehurst then — grades 1, 3 and 4, I think — and I took them all home to shampoo their heads and pick out the nits before they could return to school. There was no scorn or condescension from Mr. Gordon about the head lice. Somewhere in our conversation that day, he told me about his brother who is deaf. And I can remember thinking to myself that I would give anything to have my oldest daughter, who died when she was a first grader at Maplehurst, alive again to pick the nits out of her hair, too. When she died, Mr. Gordon (and Mrs. Gordon, who had been her kindergarten teacher) both came to our house to try to comfort us. Mr. Gordon was that kind of principal. He didn't have to do that. When I first heard that he was dying, I planned to write a note to him to tell him how much we loved him as our children's principal. Only I didn't do that. And he didn't die — not then. I got busy, and I never wrote that note. &emsp;&emsp; And then he did die — on Jan. 28. The picture of him that ran with his obituary was a transformation of the man I knew. You see, after he stopped being principal at Maplehurst, he became assistant superintendent of the school district. That was the short-haired, suit-wearing Mr. Gordon. He was a tough negotiator with the teachers' union. I saw him again, some time after he retired — with long hair, hippie-ish, relaxed. And now his obituary photo — pale, fuzzy, short light hair probably ravaged by chemo. And yet he had the same friendly eyes, the same smile, that I remember from the "good news" days at Maplehurst Elementary. I regret that I never wrote that note when he would have been alive to read it. All I can do is write this column and hope that his wife, Aundrea, and daughter, Amanda, will find some comfort in it. To me, he will always be Mr. Gordon, my children's principal, who taught my son to juggle, who was a friend to the little kids at his school, who cared enough to come to my house when my daughter died — and who diagnosed, without condescension, our case of head lice. Thank you, Mr. Gordon, for the good experience you gave my little ones, and all the other little ones, who are now successful adults. They got their start as your elementary students. Rest in peace, Mr. Gordon. Debbie Leffler is a freelance writer who lives in Norwalk. She can be reached at rleffler@neo.rr.com.