Mrs. Job

Mark's post on creating a mythos as a professor reminded me of the two teachers in my life who have had such mythos.  The first is Stanley Hauerwas, who I'm not going to say anything about because you've probably heard most of the stories.  I'm going to talk about Mrs. Job, my high school English teacher.  Pronounced like the guy in the Bible.

Let's start with the title.  Mrs.  There was no Mr.  Job.  Dead?  Divorced?  No one knew.  She mentioned her boyfriend on occasion, but there was never any reference to Mr. Job, which only added to her air of mystery.

Mrs. Job was somewhere in her thirties or early forties, had shoulder-length brilliant red hair, and always wore skirts just short enough to slide over her knee when she perched on the edge of her desk, which was her favorite position.  She had a strange accent, something inbetween British and Southern. 

The biggest rumor about Mrs. Job was that she'd been a Vogue model.  I have no idea if it's true, and that's not the point anyway.  It was the most glamorous part of her mythos.  I probably heard this rumor first when I was a little girl from my babysitter, who had Mrs. Job as a teacher and used to amuse me with imitations of her.  When I got to high school, it was like meeting a legend. 

When our papers were not up to her standards, she would perch on the edge of her desk, sigh dramatically, and say, "Your papers were so awful, I simply had to console myself with a glass of sherry."  She often mentioned the glass of sherry in conjunction with grading papers. 

I need to add that Mrs. Job was a fantastic teacher, probably the second best I've ever had.  In fact, I entered college with the goal of being a high school English teacher, just like Mrs. Job...perhaps ever so slightly less glamorous. 

So I think all you need is a missing spouse, a glamorous past, a strange accent, and a favorite drink to start that mythos.