A speech given in honor of Vaughan Murzursky’s retirement from Porter-Gaud School

Over the years, I’ve had the honor to deliver several of these sending-off speeches for some masterful teachers – the late Tom Evatt, Erica Lesesne, Sue Chanson, Ed Burrows, Natalie Herford.  But never have I faced such a daunting task as to encapsulate in under four minutes the five-FEET, two inches of gut-crunching, man-eating terror that is Paula Vaughan Mazursky.

“The Czarina.”

Where to begin?  

How about Barnwell, South Carolina, Vaughan’s hometown?  

Besides Vaughan, Barnwell has produced more than its share of notable South Carolinians, including, in the political realm, Edgar Brown and Solomon Blatt. However, undisputedly, Barnwell’s most famous native son is James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, the hardest working man in showbiz, or perhaps, nowadays, the hardest working penitent in Purgatory.

Of course, the Godfather was 13 years older than Vaughan, and Barnwell’s schools were segregated in their day, but what an exciting concept to think of them as contemporaries, the Godfather and the Czarina, in an integrated high school, perhaps as chemistry lab partners – if I may quote the Godfather – [holler] – what an explosive combination that would have been! 

For, like James Brown, Vaughan Mazursky has Soul, soul with a capital S, which may be the most remarkable trait of this very remarkable, unforgettable woman. I don’t mean to diminish Vaughan’s stellar intelligence – anyone who has had the privilege of being her friend can attest to her quickness and her formidable knowledge of geography, history, art, and politics – but it is her passion that sets her apart from all the rest of us who have taught and teach here; it is her passion that has made her the teacher that former students first ask about when we bump into them years later, the teacher whom they never ever forget. 

Add to her intelligence, her passion, and her learnedness – spontaneity – a joie de vivre that might spur her to jump upon a coffee table in the old teacher’s lounge to belt out Marvin Gay’s “A Stubborn Kind of Fellow” or to scream the Georgian word for freedom right in front of a Soviet tank in occupied Tbilisi or to raise both arms in triumphant joy at an Obama rally at the Cistern, an image that appeared internationally in various media (though as a subject of a National Enquirer article, Vaughan is no stranger to the limelight). Absolutely, Vaughan lives her life to the fullest. 

Damn the cruise missiles, full speed ahead!

She was a demanding teacher, which endeared her to wise parents, not so much to materialists.  Whenever I hear of that proverbial subliterate high school student from No-wheres-ville, USA who points to the Indian Ocean when asked to locate Alaska on a globe, I think of my two sons pouring over maps of godforsaken sub-Saharan countries, labeling rivers and mountain ranges, or strutting around the house doing the Wagga-do-do dance (which, by the way, Vaughan, I have spelled in this speech W-a-g-g-a-d-o-d-o).  

O, my brothers and sisters, I have faced the fearsome wrath of MaZoo.  In ’89 before I accompanied her and 21 students on a 28-day trip to the Soviet Union, a trek that took us from Leningrad to Moscow to Siberia back through Tashkent, Alma-Ata, Samarkand, and Tbilisi, I had to prove my worthiness by taking geographical tests along with the students on every so-called Republic we passed through. I, too, had to memorize the names of transliterated towns, rivers, lakes, and mountains and spell the transliterations correctly. Let’s say on the first couple of quizzes I didn’t meet the Czarina’s high expectations, but soon learned that she was serious.  She wasn’t going to take along to a foreign land anyone not competently aware of the history and topography of his destination.

The good ol’ Evil Empire has been in history’s dustbin for two decades, so many of you may not know that Vaughan taught a senior course in Soviet history back in the day, a course that attracted the very brightest of our students, the de facto AP history course for seniors back when there wasn’t an AP history course for seniors.  

It is, I think, the mark of a great teacher that she can effectively teach a wide range of grades.  Here, the Czarina reigned supreme – She taught 8th graders geography, current affairs – and had them watch heart-throb ABC news anchor Peter Jennings every Monday thru Thursday – all the while below the radar teaching them organizational and study skills. Meanwhile, in the Upper School, she was having students grapple with the forces that led to the Russian Revolution, the complexities of the emerging Soviet State, the nuts and bolts of economics.

[Sigh] There’s so much more to say – I should talk about her trailblazing as one of the first female teachers in this school – I should talk about the devotion that the very best graduates we’ve produced hold for her, people like George Kent, Paul O’Brien, Blakely Blackford, and Alex Werrell, but I’m nearing the end of page two, which is my self-imposed limit.

* * *

In closing, as I stand here recalling the history of a great history teacher, I would like to mention a name from the past, Berkeley Grimball, who hired Vaughan and me and a handful of others here but without whom none of the rest of you would be here, because this institution would not exist.  

By the early Sixties, Porter-Military had been reduced to a school for troublesome boys, and the Gaud School, though excellent in academics, subsisted in dingy, threadbare rooms, in a sort of Dickensian shabbiness.

It was Berkeley Grimball who had the vision to unite the spirituality of Dr. Porter and the academic rigor of Mr. Gaud to create this hyphenated school, and when the three schools merged in 1965 – at the height of Civil Rights Unrest – Porter-Gaud offered enrollment to anyone who qualified, white, black, or yellow, Muslim, Jew, atheist, or Hindu – a liberality of which we all can all be proud, a liberality that Vaughan Mazursky has always proudly embraced.   

As we old folks disappear, we are fairly soon mostly forgotten. That is the way of the world.

However, Vaughan, you, for sure, have attained legendary status and your legacy will be remembered and cherished for decades as you remain a part of those students’ lives you have enriched – as you have enriched those of us who have taught with you – and I hope you’ll continue to enrich us, your friends, at parties and taverns and non-violent demonstrations.

Let me tell you, Vaughan, you are revered.  

Mike Johnson, the hastily installed new Speaker of the House of Representatives, is a religious fanatic who makes my late Bircher literalist cousin Zilla look like a forward thinker.

For example, here’s his take on same-sex marriages:

“Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and, the studies clearly show, are ultimately harmful and costly for everyone. Society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle. If we change marriage for this tiny, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet.”

Oh, I’m sure at the moment Mike’s on a prestige high, puffed up with pride, swamping Jesus’s switchboard with an overload of hallelujahs, enjoying all the attention, but this too shall pass because he’s destined to fail at his new job – understaffed, inexperienced, more or less chosen, not for intellect nor competence but because he possesses a winning Republican combination of rightwing fanaticism softened by a pleasant demeanor. 

Affable Mike Johnson believes that the Bible is literally true. He’s on record claiming that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old, which is pretty remarkable for anyone in the 21st Century but especially remarkable for someone so powerful, someone a mere two deaths away from possessing the nuclear codes. 

I suspect that the 18 Republican representatives who serve in districts carried by Biden and who voted for Johnson may come to rue their decision come November 2024.

Hey Mike, as St. Teresa of Avila once said, “More tears have been shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers.”

My sons circa 1988

Although I write about the past quite often, I don’t think of myself as nostalgic. Last week, for example, I uploaded hundreds of photos from a CD-ROM to iCloud. Even though I enjoyed revisiting my life, I wouldn’t want to return to those not-so halcyon days of diaper training or middle school dances. Looking at these images of yore, I was pleasantly reminded of how our little family took almost everything in stride, even Hurricane Hugo. 

But we did and were almost always happy ­– that is, unless the Braves lost, the Gamecocks lost, Al Gore lost, or work drama intruded, which, of course, it did perhaps more than occasionally. 

After her stint as a stay-at-home mom and kindergarten aide, my wife Judy worked as a school psychologist, and I taught at a prestigious prep school. Nevertheless, despite the occasional workplace kerfuffle, we loved our jobs, and I don’t see how you can be happy if you don’t enjoy your employment.^[1]

In fact, there was only one job I have enjoyed more than teaching at Porter-Gaud and that was bartending at the Golden Spur, a bar located in the student union center in the Russell House at the University of South Carolina back in those enlightened days when 18-year-olds were allowed to purchase alcohol in addition to being eligible to join the armed forces.  

You punched a time clock at the Spur. Since you could get draft beer at happy hour for a quarter, I suspect that my hourly wage would seem downright Medieval nowadays, but being poor wasn’t shameful back then. I didn’t own a car until I was 25. I got by on my charm. 

But man, what fun I had slinging the suds, engaging with the clientele, flirting with customers and my fellow bartenders. I never looked up ruefully at a clock ever. And then other times we’d bartend frat parties at Belle Camp. When I matriculated at USC, I was anti-fraternity, but these parties made me realize that I had been too severe a moralizer. These parties were fun. One time, a preppy girl took my hand, pulled me away from my station at the makeshift Budweiser truck mobile bar with beer taps sticking out its side, and started dancing with me. She did some kind of sorority sway; I did the wa-wa-tusi like Bela Lugosi. 

Your friendly (and apparently stoned) Golden Spur Bartender

It was fun, memorable. 

So sure, I think about the past occasionally, but I don’t dwell on it. It’s the future that hijacks my thoughts when I lack the good sense to savor the eternal now. The planet is coughing up phlegm. The Fertile Crescent is virtually uninhabitable. Connecticut-sized slabs of glaciers are sloughing off into an ever-rising ocean. 12% of the Republican Party think that the Deep State is run by extraterrestrial pedophiles. Millions of people worship a wrestling promoter.

So yeah, I can see why nostalgia might serve as a refuge. I ain’t judging.

^[1] Confession. I don’t use the word “kerfuffle” in conversation. It’s a Britishism. Perhaps I chose it because I just got back from Oxford. Maybe the background conversations that didn’t register took root somehow. Anyway, I don’t like kerfuffle. It’s too cute sounding. I should have used my ol’ go-to snafu synonym: “conjunctification.” 

Now that I can legitimately claim to be a novelist, I feel obligated to eavesdrop, to ask strangers about their lives, even at the cost of seeming intrusive. It’s my job to chronicle the human condition, dammit!

For example, at the moment I’m in a bar at Charleston International Airport sitting next to a young man who turns thirty-one next week. He is, to coin a phrase, as blind as a John Milton’s pet bat’s pet mole. He suffers from a hereditary disease called ocular atrophy, which he gets honestly – his father has it, his uncle has it. He leans his face two inches from his laptop, reminiscent of a photograph I’ve seen of James Joyce peering at close range with the aid of a magnifying glass at Finnegan’s Wake.

The good news is that next week my near-sighted brand-new friend is headed to the Aegean with his girlfriend. They’ll check out an exotic medley of destinations including Athens, Mykonos, Venice, and places in Croatia whose names he can’t at the moment conjure.

But here’s the rub: the last cruise he and his girlfriend took, a Caribbean island-hopping adventure, commenced before Covid was a publicized thing.  Near the end of the cruise, having just fallen asleep and already hungover at five a.m, he was awakened by an ominous blast blaring from a loud speaker. The port of San Juan had been closed because of a pandemic! 

I thought he was going to relate a prisoner-at-sea tale, the ship running out of provisions because no mayor wanted a Covid incubator infecting their fair city, the parched passengers turning on each other, battling over a dwindling supply of Lays potato chips, but he said San Juan’s closing suited him fine because he didn’t have to go ashore and could recuperate in his cabin for two days.

I told him that had the potential of being a great short story and that I might steal the idea. “It’s all yours,” he said.

But now he’s off, headed to Dallas for a job interview.

I’m not making this up. The fellow who has taken his place at the seat next to me is flying to DC because his father’s just had, “a widow-making heart attack,” 9.9 blockage, but, as it turns out, the father is not dead (nor is he married at the moment). The heart attack victim’s family is “up his ass” about his lifestyle. I can’t follow up on the drama because I need to make my way to B9, and anyway, the sons’ thumbs are flying in rapid-fire texting. 

Hey, I can identify with the the young man’s father. A lifestyle is a lifestyle is a lifestyle. Don’t get up my ass, do-gooders!  Keith Richards don’t work for no CIA.

Cheers, I’m off to London!