Mencken, Mencken, Mencken

A former student, who irreverently refers to me as "Big Ass"--I'm large, and this nickname evolved from "Big S," for me and the first initial of my last name--just sent me this quotation:

"The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how
can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation."
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Mencken's right, but he doesn't go far enough. It's not just schoolmasters who are essentially an ass; just ask Dogberry ("Much Ado About Nothing"): "But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass..." Sheriffs, too, and all the rest of us--what do we think of bankers at the moment? --are an ass.

To call teaching "puerile" is simply to name an occupation by its inescapable preoccupation.

But to call teaching an "avocation" demonstrates the difference between Mencken's time and ours, or Mencken's mind and mine. I am not an ass avocationally. I am called to be an ass.