I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr. Jack Bibb since his passing…over. He was an excellent human. He was an excellent teacher. Mr. Bibb and Mr. Larrieu doubled as the directors for the annual school musicals: Mr. Larrieu for the music, Mr. Bibb for the drama. As a member of our small community, Mr. Bibb also did double duty as the announcer for all of the high school football games. He was great at it, too. (After Mr. Larrieu retired, Mr. Larrieu was the city mayor!) Small town. Sadly, both of these great men are now lost to us, as well as too many other greats from our small Junior/Senior High School.
Mr. Bibb taught all three of my siblings at PHS as he challenged us in English. He challenged all of his students, asking us to do our best, to be our best.” He taught by example, too. I remember that if he saw a piece of trash on the lawn, he would pick up it up. A sense of civic duty, I think, and pride in his school, his community. There is a C.S. Lewis quote that states “Integrity is what you do when nobody is watching.” Mr. Bibb had integrity.
The funny thing is, though, we were watching. I know I was, and he made me want to be a better person. I still remember it, and now, if I see a piece of litter on the street, I am compelled to pick it up. Most of the time I do.
Mr. Bibb served the Portola Community for what seems to us like 100 years, but on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, he died, and it turned out he was “only” 88. Or, as Nancy told me, 88 and a 1/2. He was still relatively healthy, happily he had no terrible health complications, but when it came time for him to wake up, he just…didn’t.
I heard the sad news early in the day, because my friend Red called me. (Thanks, gal!) She texted me first after she herself learned from reading it on Facebook, which is a horrible way to learn such tragic news. She asked, simply, “Did you hear?” I replied. “No. Text me if Mr. Bibb died,” I texted back. I have good intuition. Gut wrenchingly, my phone rang a moment later.
I had asked her to call me instead of text because somehow I knew it was going to be big news–bad news– or else she would have just asked me in the text, “Did you hear Mr. Bibb died?” I’m glad she didn’t ask like that, because, if at all possible, nobody should find out somebody died by reading it on Facebook or from getting a text. If possible.
Mr. Bibb was a kind man, under what my brother calls a “gruff exterior.” He’s right. After graduation, we stayed in touch. Sometimes I saw him when I went to Portola to visit my family, and I wrote him letters from time to time. Every time we spoke, which was periodically over the 30 plus years since my high school graduation, his first words were always, “How is your mother?” That sweet, old-fashioned question, encapsulates so much about him. What a thoughtful and kind person. What a gentleman.
Before his life as a stellar English teacher, Mr. Bibb had served in the Marine Corps. He had served in the Korean War. He had graduated from UC Berkeley. As we knew, Mr. Bibb was one amazing man: A soldier and a scholar.
Outside of his teaching life, he had an entire life, a wife, a family. Mr. Bibb and Nancy were married for 66 years, longer than most of us can imagine. 66 years is longer than some people even live, but there they were together, for 66 beautiful years. It’s amazing. With Mr. Bibb and Nancy Bibb’s marriage, they set a remarkable example for the rest of us. They are inspirational.
That teachers still exist outside of their classroom is something students never can quite grasp. What do you mean they go to restaurants? (Something people used to do before Covid). I remember being stunned when I was a server at the Plumas Pines, and I was abruptly confronted with that full reality when Mr. Bibb and Nancy were seated at a table in my service area. They even had friends with them!! I did my best to be a good waitress, but it was shocking. My English teacher existed outside of PHS! Holy cow!
It’s a little like seeing a celebrity in real life. You know they are real people, beyond and off the big screen, but it’s still weird. They laugh and cry, they go to the bathroom, they eat food. They breathe.
Somehow, though, and unbelievably, on Wednesday, March 10, that was no longer true. The great Mr. Bibb did not breathe. And he never will again. The fact of that, the immensity of that, has shaken me. I know that death happens; I’ve lived through, and grieved into it, more than my fair share in my lifetime. But still…Mr. Bibb?!? Really?
When you are a kid, someone who is 50 years old seems old. When I was in high school, being shaped, prodded and molded by the inimitable Mr. Bibb, he seemed old then. He was only about the age I am now. Life is short. God Bless Mr. Bibb.