Mr. Gutman

Everyone should have a teacher like Mr. Gutman some time in their school life.

Prompted by a friend's question about mentors, I called Detroit directory assistance last night, found his number, and called Mr. Gutman. It was the right thing to do. He answered the phone, I stammered my name and why I was calling. "Are you the Mark Gutman who used to teach in Garden City? You won't remember me, but..."

He did remember me, and we talked for half an hour about other kids from his eighth-grade social studies class, other teachers he worked with at the junior high school, and Mr. Singer the principal (I learned the difference between a principal and a principle because Mr. Gutman called Mr. Singer his "princie pal"!). He was as gracious as could be, and his phone voice sounded exactly like the cool twenty-something teacher in the blue-collar suburb whose charisma and respect won over all of us - the smart kids, the shy kids, the jocks, the good girls, the bad girls, the greasers, the lonely kids.

Mr. Gutman was especially interested in whether I had kept in touch with my friends from Garden City after moving to Southfield (no), and he encouraged me to search for them on classmates.com. Did I marry a girl from Garden City? (no) Turns out he moved to Southfield around the time I did, and he lived near 12-Mile and Evergreen, less than a mile from me. Turns out I moved to Ohio for graduate school and eventually got into publishing, and now I'm a textbook editor in social studies. He called it a coincidence.

He's retired now - it's been 40 years - after serving as high school principal, and he plays golf with Mr. Estelle, who was assistant principal and Good Cop under Bad Cop Mr. Singer. I remarked that to my 13-year-old mind, he and Mr. Singer seemed like rivals. Gutman acknowledged that Singer was "tough as nails" but helped him get into administration, which is what he wanted to do. Mentoring goes both ways and happens in the unlikeliest packages.