{"id":1575,"date":"2011-02-15T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2011-02-15T05:00:24","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T12:00:24","slug":"momm-the-death-of-a-beloved-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1575","title":{"rendered":"MOMM: The Death of a Beloved Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Louie Mimms (LPHS English Class, circa 1984)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The look on his face is classic Mr. Mimms.\u00a0 I should know.\u00a0\u00a0I had seen that look hundreds of times\u00a0before I summoned the courage to snap this candid\u00a0photo for our high school yearbook.\u00a0 I can only imagine what he was thinking!<\/p>\n

As I look at this picture that I took over 25 years ago, I\u00a0fondly remember a\u00a0man who had such a profound influence on my life and the lives of countless others.\u00a0 Hopefully for the better, I am the writer I am today in large part because of him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Louie Mimms\u00a0— affectionately referred to\u00a0by his students at Lake Placid (FL) High School\u00a0as MOMM\u00a0— “Mean Old Mister Mimms\u00a0— was anything but mean.\u00a0 Although in retrospect, he did seem\u00a0a little old (62)\u00a0to a bunch of 16 and 17-year-old high school kids back in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

As a freshman in high school in fall 1980, I began hearing horror stories from upper classmen about this hard (and mean) English teacher\u00a0who I would have to face my junior and senior years.\u00a0 To make matters worse, I would have to\u00a0walk by his class my first two years of high school, all the while trying to avoid the stare that you see in the picture above.\u00a0 Let’s just say that I was easily intimidated in those days.<\/p>\n

When I finally started 11th grade in 1982, I was both anxious and excited about learning English from Mr. Mimms.\u00a0 While I mostly earned A’s and B’s (10th Grade Geometry and 11th Grade Algebra II excepted) and considered myself a good student, I desired to excel in Mr. Mimms’ English classes.<\/p>\n

It did not take very long to realize a couple of things about MOMM.\u00a0 First, he was not really mean, but he expected his students to treat him with the utmost respect.\u00a0 He was certainly deserving of our respect, having fought for our country as a fighter pilot in World War II.\u00a0 Major Mimms\u00a0would serve for 23 years in the United States Air Force before “retiring” and beginning\u00a0his teaching career.\u00a0 I don’t know if he was ever\u00a0stationed at Holloman AFB near Alamogordo, NM where I currently live.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps because of his military background, he always wore a tie (like in the picture) and he would address us by Mister or Miss and our last names.\u00a0 Of course, it was a given that we address him as Mr. Mimms. It usually only took one time for the class clown to incur\u00a0Mr. Mimms’ “wrath” — he did not suffer fools lightly.\u00a0 There were very few repeat offenders.\u00a0 While that sounds “old-school” today, that was the norm for Mr. Mimms and for his students back in the day.<\/p>\n

I also quickly learned that Mr. Mimms would do all he could to help those students who truly wanted to learn English.\u00a0 If you were serious about your studies, he\u00a0would bend over backwards to see that you succeeded in his class.\u00a0 If you were a “bad egg” who didn’t want to study or learn,\u00a0then he would allow you to reap what you had sown.\u00a0 He had a passion for learning and a passion for teaching.\u00a0 That inspired me and many others to want to be “good eggs.”<\/p>\n

Lastly, I realized what it took to be a really “good egg.”\u00a0 Mr. Mimms\u00a0did not give out A’s indiscriminately (especially to those who dared to use the made-up word\u00a0“irregardless” instead of “regardless”).\u00a0 To receive an A in his class, you would have to earn it.\u00a0 I don’t remember\u00a0how long it took, but I finally earned a coveted A from Mr. Mimms.\u00a0 Like no other teacher\u00a0who I ever sat under in high school or after, I wanted to do my very best for this man who set the highest standards for himself and for his students.\u00a0 Those are the kind of teachers who leave their mark in this world and who you remember\u00a0a quarter century\u00a0later.<\/p>\n

After graduating from high school, I would come home to Lake Placid during semester breaks and\u00a0in the summer.\u00a0 I would\u00a0often have occasion to drive by\u00a0the Mimms’ home, located on a hairpin curve on Placid Lakes Drive.\u00a0 Every now and then, I would see Mr. Mimms out in his yard, tending to his fruit trees.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u00a0always loved to stop and visit with him.\u00a0 Always in character (at least\u00a0initially), he would grumble something “mean” about why I was in his yard.\u00a0 After\u00a0a short pause, he would break character and\u00a0begin what would\u00a0always be memorable visits.\u00a0 He\u00a0usually gave me a couple of grocery sacks of fruit to take with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My\u00a0wife, who was three years behind me in school, never had the opportunity to take Mr. Mimms’ English classes before he retired.\u00a0 She never visited with him in his front yard.\u00a0 However, I will never forget the time when I took her for a ride\u00a0on my parents’ Sea Doo on the same lake where Mr. Mimms lived.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we neared his home, I slowed down and began yelling, “That’s Mr. Mimms’ house.\u00a0 That’s Mr. Mimms’ house.”\u00a0 The only problem was that I had slowed down too much to keep our balance.\u00a0 We both toppled from the water\u00a0craft,\u00a0making a huge splash in the lake,\u00a0about 50 feet from the Mimm’s shoreline.\u00a0 In\u00a0the incredibly long time that it took us to re-mount our water transportation, my wife and I had one of the most\u00a0spirited “discussions” of our marriage!<\/p>\n

After Brenda and I left Lake Placid for seminary, I lost touch with Mr. Mimms.\u00a0 I have thought of him often over the intervening years, wondering what had become of him.\u00a0 Turns out he was living in Ocala, FL\u00a0with his wife of 67 years.\u00a0 I received word last week, through a Facebook friend, that Mr. Mimms\u00a0passed away peacefully on January 5 at the age of 89<\/a>.\u00a0 MOMM was now gone, but would not soon be forgotten.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I try to conclude this post, words seem to escape me.\u00a0 So I’ll\u00a0just paraphrase the last words typed by Richard Dryfuss’ character\u00a0at the end of one of my favorite movies, “Stand By Me”<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I haven’t seen him in more than ten years, I know I’ll miss him.\u00a0 I never had any\u00a0teacher later on like the one I had when I was in\u00a011th and 12th grade\u00a0English. Does anybody?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The look on his face is classic Mr. Mimms.\u00a0 I should know.\u00a0\u00a0I had seen that look hundreds of times\u00a0before I summoned the courage to snap this candid\u00a0photo for our high school yearbook.\u00a0 I can only imagine what he was thinking! As I look at this picture that I took over 25 years ago, I\u00a0fondly remember…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[351,365,494,591,592,624,674,738,838,933,1020,1054],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-uncategorized","tag-english-teacher","tag-facebook","tag-holloman-air-force-base","tag-lake-placid-florida","tag-lake-placid-high-school","tag-louis-mimms","tag-momm","tag-ocala","tag-richard-dryfuss","tag-stand-by-me","tag-united-states-air-force","tag-world-war-ii"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-pp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}