Goodbye, my friend: Sports Editor reflects on friendship with former teacher

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sports Editor Geoff Stoute was a former English student of Raymond Nails for seventh and eighth grades at Central Catholic. While Stoute wrote a column called “Stoute’s Honor” when working in news that touched on multiple topics, he decided to bring it back for just one week in honor of Nails, who passed away Tuesday. Nails inspired and encouraged Stoute as a writer and influenced him, not only as Stoute’s teacher, but also as a friend and father-figure.

I entered Room 4 at Central Catholic High School on an August morning in 1998 not really knowing what to expect.
I already was taking a monumental step from elementary school next door at Holy Cross to junior high. Instead of a desk per day, I now called six seats and a gym home.
Instead of one teacher, I now had multiple, none like the other.
The one who peaked my interest the most was Mr. Raymond Nails.
I had never met him before but heard so much about him. An excellent but tough teacher who was respected. The name simply was synonymous with Central Catholic.
Until entering seventh grade, I had made pretty good grades but didn’t exert as much effort as I truly could all the time.
Writing was fairly easy, but none of that mattered. That was elementary school. This was junior high.
When we got down to business, I soon realized things would be OK. Sure, Nails was tough and he worked us hard, but he also was a very nice guy.
We had no text book. We WROTE our own text book through countless sheets with rules and principles, followed by more worksheets to enforce what we had just learned.
There was no question when you saw that white Honda Accord, personalized license plate RFTN (Raymond Fulton Thomas Nails) daily in the parking lot and you entered Room 4, you knew
what that expectation was: you were going to work.
There were no off days. We “couldn’t waste tuition money,” as he so often said.
Besides, we were special. “Just think of the children” (insert whatever subject we were learning) who were not fortunate enough to learn what we were, he often reminded us.
To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever written as much in another class as I did those two years in Nails’ class.
To this day, I don’t think I found a better friend, either.
Now, nearly 20 years later when I look back on it, there are so many things I take from those two wonderful years.
When you really break it down, Nails was teaching us life skills. He just simply masked it behind the English language. Hard work. Responsibility. Discipline. They are all values we apply to be
successful adults that we learned in his seventh- and eighth-grade classes.
And tuition money? Yes, he literally meant the money we paid to the school, but it was more than that. Tuition money was a metaphoric reference for time. Time is precious. Use it wisely.
He was teaching us more than words, and we didn’t even know it. We were just worried about that bell ringing.
Well played, Mr. Nails. Well played.
While I figured my journey with him was over after I finished eighth grade, boy was I mistaken. I was fortunate, like so many others, to get to know the personal side of Raymond Nails as an
adult.
Outside of the classroom, Nails was so many things, but above all, so very kind and selfless.
I credit so much to him. Yes, I took many English and writing courses since those two years with him, but I told him quite often that he gave me the building blocks to be where I am. He gave
me the tools to effectively communicate.
While things were refined later, he started the cycle, and I never can thank him enough.
Although we had occasional conversations through the years and after we “became” friends on Facebook, in the last year or so, we grew closer.
He began checking in on me, for no other reason than he simply cared, and we began to meet for dinner occasionally and discuss anything.
In the last six months or so, that bond grew into one that we spoke daily, greeting each other each morning and talking throughout the day via text message or Facebook.
I enjoyed learning so much about him and his wonderful family. He looked at me, like he had so many others, almost as if I was one of his own. Oftentimes he gave me “fatherly advice,” whether I liked it or not.
Recently, I visited the “Chapel of Room 4,” as one of his former students, James Irwin, once referred to it.
Of course, with his wit, Nails, who was excited I had visited the room, asked me if I genuflected when I entered and asked my reasoning for being in the "chapel"
I told him I had gone to the school to do a video preview of Central Catholic’s baseball team’s quarterfinal game against Cedar Creek with head coach Tyler Jensen, another former Nails student, and we were looking for a spot to do the video.
While the “chapel” wasn’t lit well enough for the video, the memories that filled my mind walking in there were as bright as could be.
While the room had a similar look to when it did when Nails taught there, there was one distinct difference I noticed immediately: a flat screen TV above the venerable chalk board where we
learned so many English lessons.
When we exited the room and headed for the library where there was better lighting, I told Jensen it was good to visit the room.
He smiled and responded: “Some things you just never forget.”
Of course, flattered but not to be outdone, Nails responded to the story with an even greater compliment: “Thanks for remembering, and Tyler is right in that some things you just don’t forget.
And, I might add, you two guys are two one doesn’t forget, either.”
That was simply vintage RFTN. Whenever you tried to heap praise on him, he simply returned it 10-fold.
There are two memories of Nails within the last month I will never forget.
The first was about a month ago when, after a rough day for him, I visited him at home.
While the mood was not as lighthearted initially as it usually was, that changed when we went to dinner and returned to his home to visit.
By the end of the night, we were laughing so much, he was literally crying at times.
As I left, I had forgotten the real reason I had gone there, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
The second memory occurred last Friday. Mr. Nails had some business to take care of in Houma and needed some company. I messaged
him that morning to see if he found someone to accompany him, and he said he was waiting for a call back from another person.
I offered to accompany him, and he readily accepted.
Even en route to Houma, he never stopped teaching, giving me a history lesson of where the city limits of Houma began and pointing out different buildings and telling me what he knew of
them.
When we arrived at our destination in Houma, he turned from teacher to the life of the party, holding court and interacting with nearly everyone he saw.
On the way home and at his house, more laughter ensued, and finally, I left his house around 8 p.m. Friday night after visiting more.
It was a long but rewarding day.
I last heard from him Monday morning as he responded to a text I had sent hours before, wishing him luck on a busy week ahead.
I never wake up to texts from my phone, but for some reason, I opened my eyes from a deep sleep just as his text came through, thanking me and telling me he would talk to me later.
The last few days, I have done a lot of thinking about his immediate relatives and other extended family much closer to him and how they are grieving much more than I am.
Like on at least one Facebook post I read, I simply cannot thank them enough for how much of a wonderful man he was.
But I know that now he has simply moved on to Heaven where he is mentoring and teaching “the children” that he didn’t touch on earth.
I chuckle, too, wondering whether he is taking orders from God or vice versa.
But I know one thing: not a dime of his tuition money was wasted on this earth and he wasted none of mine.