PROFESSOR'S FORMULA FOR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
The holidays are so rushed and full of pressure. Before you know it, your brother gets a gift certificate, your Aunt Myrtle gets the instant animated Santa e-greeting, and you get the feeling that hardly any thought goes into the season anymore.
So I was inspired when I came across the story of "Professor" William Mealing, a man who kept up the spirit of Christmas throughout the year. His bright suits and shiny jewelry were as festive as a Christmas tree, and his stories were just as colorful. I recently discovered him while doing some research.
Professor Mealing started an after-school basketball program for boys at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Elementary School on Belmont. Despite always falling behind on his own rent, he used his own money to buy the kids trophies. But he was more than a gym teacher. He was an African-American living in a mostly white Lakeview neighborhood, and he was the neighborhood mentor, known by some as the "Pied Piper" of Lakeview, according to Tribune reports.
Mealing traveled the world, knew famous people, and owned luxurious homes. At least, that's what he told the kids.
Gary Dong was one of those kids. The year was 1973. The self-proclaimed professor took the 6th-grader and his friends to concerts and to dinner. Mealing set standards--requiring them to dress appropriately-- and he taught them dining etiquette.
"It means a lot to take time. My parents didn't have time to show us. They both worked," Dong told me. "He was always up on your work and he'd always check up on us with teachers."
But all is not always what it seems. Nobody really knew where the good professor came from, and he was prone to grandiose stories. However, they felt they could trust him.
Dong said that as he grew older he learned more about his mysterious mentor's life from Mealing himself. He believes Mealing's mom was a maid for a wealthy family near North Lake Shore Drive. When something happened to his mom, the wealthy family adopted him.
"So he had this opportunity that others didn't. He got an education," Dong explained.
When he was in his 60s, Mealing apparently enrolled in math and history courses at Truman College. He never married.
"If I'd had a child of my own," the Tribune once quoted Mealing as saying, "how could I have ever [kept] up with all the other children I have to worry about?"
On June 27, 2002, Mealing, died of cardiovascular disease. It's unclear how old he was; his obituary speculates he may have been 100.
Dong went to Mealing's small, cluttered, basement apartment to clean it out after he died. The professor kept all the things kids had given him over the years--letters, postcards, graduation photos-- spread on poster board, the refrigerator and in photo albums.
Dong, 44, is now a dentist in Chicago. He has two children.
"Now that I reflect… he had no ulterior motive, but to give people a good start," Dong said.
Mealing's legacy? His generosity--not so much the money he scraped up for the kids cleaning houses, but his time.
Maybe it's not as glamorous as an Xbox or as practical as a gift certificate, but these days, time is at a premium, and it's a far better investment for both the person who gives and the person who receives.--