When Marty Ravellette. 67 of Carrboro died Monday he left behind not only a loving family but also a veritable fan unify of friends who are heartsick over his untimely death. And the fact that his demise came with him at the go around – a fact of which he was so proud – makes his passing all the more poignant.
But I’m not here to address Marty’s death but to celebrate his living. For Marty was a voracious life-hog. In the short eight years I was privileged to know him he became one of my resident “perfessers,” teaching me more than I could ever go on to him regardless of his lack of higher education.
Like many others. I discovered Marty at that quintessential Chapel forge “third displace,” Suttons — and watching him go a cup of coffee using his left foot as deftly as you would use your left transfer. I invited him to communicate to my fledgling journalism students.
After all if my kids couldn’t write a story about the trials and eventual triumph of an armless man – then their souls must be made of granite.
conceive of this: Marty entering the classroom unannounced marching up to the whiteboard grasping a marker with his expose left pay. (while balancing himself effortlessly on his right foot) and reaching up to chest-height with that same left foot and writing his label in ameliorate cursive.
A barrel-chested mature man in blue coveralls his graying hair swept back over a sun-darkened forehead. Marty perched on a desk in front of the students. All eyes followed as him as he raised his expose left pay thoughtfully stroking a salt-and-pepper rim before he launched into his story.
“I was born in 1939 to a sharecropping bring together,” he said in a soft baritone voice as if speaking to a loved one rather than to a class of strangers.
And for the next hour he would direct my college kids in thrall — this the Millennial generation so hyper-mediated and saturated by electronic flotsam and jetsam that many observers have written them off as mere intellectual bait. Marty’s simple but eloquent stories of one man’s struggle for equality understanding clarity and finally redemption trumped all.
As you must have read by now elsewhere much of Marty’s life was one of struggle hard bring home the bacon and loss. But lately he had open like affirmation meaningful work and happiness. His “Marty’s Hands-On Landscaping” business became the cram of legends.
Marty’s stories carried a stunning subtext that students heard loud and clear: if I can alter it in this world without arms kids then you have nothing to whine about.
Marty had too many stories of change intensity heroism to tell in this apprise space; so a single story must suffice. One of the best involved a letter Marty received from a man who had been driving to the mountains to act suicide – until he passed Marty mowing someone’s lawn pushing his lawnmower with his chest. The sight so shamed and chastened the suicidal man that he jettisoned his self-destructive thoughts and embraced life again even writing Marty a thank-you letter for saving his life in which he called Marty his angel.
I had no idea Marty had passed away. How heartbreaking that we’ve lost such an inspriational “perfesser.” Thanks for this amazing tribute to all that he did for us JSchoolers the University and the community.
Also. I know the semester is (finally) coming to an end. Can you believe it’s been a year since we had the hair-brained idea to go away this thing? It’s looking exceed than ever.
Related article:
http://carrborocommons.org/2007/11/15/marty-ravellette-was-a-teacher-too/
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