Great Scott

Mr. Scott, even at 71 years old, is always bustling. He's either bounding off the elevator or towards it, coming from or going to the next adventure in his day. And when he passes the reception desk, a tidal wave of his energy flows forth, leaving me in its wake with a smile and a good, old fashioned, warm fuzzy feeling.

While I'm an actor by trade, to help pay the bills I work as a receptionist at the law firm of Kelley, Drye & Warren. Several years ago, Kelley Drye acquired another DC firm, Collier, Shannon & Scott--as in the aforementioned Mr. Scott. So while I never had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Scott in his heyday as an attorney, (he is retired, but still keeps his office at the firm) tracings of his success are evident. There's his status as a named partner in the former firm, the distinguished portrait of him hanging in our Founder's Boardroom, and the universal recognition of his name. A name whose mention is largely met with the same reaction-- a smile and and a teasing sort of eye roll whose combination indicate affection and respect for the character of Mr. Scott.

My first encounters with Mr. Scott began when he would scoot past the front desk on his way to teach The History of War at Landon High School. He would toss a trivia question my way, usually historical in nature, and look at me expectantly, waiting for me to supply the answer before his elevator arrived. While the subject matters were not always foreign, the answers eluded me. I will admit that I found myself frustrated, feeling the need to prove my intelligence and capacity for knowledge to him. Here was a seasoned professional with years of experience and a brain full of facts, and I feared that I was appearing quite daft in front of him. I had an urge to blurt out my scholastic accomplishments, but dropping Phi Beta Kappa into a conversation seemed a bit gauche and clumsy on my part. So I waited and hoped for the question of the day to be one whose answer I knew readily, which would be my opportunity to prove my intellectual worth to a man whose own was clearly so high.

In the meantime, Mr. Scott began allowing me the duration of his class to come up with the answers to his quizzes. Although he's not a proponent of Google, I would happily research the topic and report my findings to him. My efforts would elicit a kind of joy in Mr. Scott--a delight that someone had taken his query seriously and embarked on a pursuit to learn more about it--an effort which he finds lacking in a lot of his teen aged students. After classes he is often grumbling about their lack of participation, their absences, and general ennui.

On a particularly frustrating day, he told me that he quoted this to his students, "Half of life is just showing up." "Do you know who said that?," he asked me. I smiled and shook my head. "Woody Allen," he said with a sigh. "These kids, they just don't get it."

As my rapport with Mr. Scott grew, I looked forward to whatever he had to share with me that day. Some days it was the normal trivia, others a tidbit about his family, snapshots from Nantucket, a magazine article about his son. I listen with amusement at his gripes--chief among them people on cell phones and drivers who switch lanes with no regard to other cars. I chuckle when I have to raise my voice the further he gets from the desk--he got a hearing aid but after expressing his initial disgust with it I'm not so sure he wears it much. When he walks by and asks, "Where am I going?", if I detect a little extra peach fuzz on his head then I know right away: Quantico, for a haircut. Once a proud Marine, always a proud Marine. I've even had the pleasure of meeting two of his granddaughters when they spent a few days with him at the office helping him file and organize. I caught them for a chat and told them that while they've got the biological grounds, I sort of think of Mr. Scott as my office grandfather. I knew in their young perspective they couldn't understand how such a presence could be so comforting to me--an individual whose psyche was just not built to be embroiled in an office environment.

A few days before Mr. Scott was to administer the first test of the semester to his students, he dropped the exam on my desk and asked me to proofread it, and then take it myself. The proofreading part I could handle, but having not had a history class since 1998, the content was far beyond my memory's reach. That old feeling began to creep up again and I feared the humiliation of certain failure. As he scooted into the elevator I protested--how could I take this exam if I haven't sat through his classes, taken diligent notes, and studied them endlessly, as I would have if I were a student? But he was gone and I was left to search for spelling errors and try my hand at his exam.

At first, I tried the Google route, using the only semi-reliable wikipedia to try and sort through yards of information on topics like Alexander the Great. But the answers to Mr. Scott's test questions were not so plainly found, and this track proved fruitless and inefficient. As the multiple choice options swam in front of my eyes and those without any options rendered me clueless, Mr. Scott's words echoed in my head. "Half of life is just showing up." I smiled to myself, embarrassed at my own pride. There was no way I was going to answer even a third of these correctly but I was just going to show up anyway. So I made my way through the test, blindly guessing on some, reaching far back into the recesses of my mind to make a fairly sound stab at others, and logically reasoning the rest. This is how I continue to take the exams that Mr. Scott sends my way, and I've come to look forward to test days.

My blind stumbling on his tests pay off when Mr. Scott and I review my results. I'm tickled when he congratulates me on any correct answer, and similarly amused when he scolds me for a wrong one. I can tell that Mr. Scott appreciates my attempts, no matter how poor their results. And in turn he rewards me with something I am always thirsty for: knowledge. The thrill of gaining new facts, especially historical ones, has always delighted me, and if my fare for these is to display how little I currently know, then so be it. There are no more grades, no more teachers to impress, no more GPAs to monitor. There is only my mind to feed and I accept the fodder eagerly.

The comings and goings of Mr. Scott are the little bright spots in my day. Whether he's complaining about his personal trainer or making sure I know that November 10th is the birthday of his beloved Marines, his spirit is buoyant and infectious. I am no longer eager to impress him or embarrassed to err in front of him. I know that as long as I "show up", and do so with abandon, it's okay by him. And quite honestly, it's an honor to be given the chance from a man with a lifetime of "showing up" behind him--for our country, for his law firm, for his family, and for the many others that know just what I mean when I smile and say, "Oh, Mr. Scott."