A random memory from the mid-1980s

If Mr. Kellam stopped by, he brought doughnuts. 

While the second grade was not a brutal experience, few things delighted quite as much as his surprise visits. 

My family moved to Dublin in May 1984. I did 10 days of first grade at Moore Street Elementary, then summer break hit. I barely knew anyone before we left for summer. 

I came back in August in a different group of kids, a more diverse bunch in Mrs. Kellam's classroom (her name was June, but there was no way I could have ever called her that). 

In the days before school shootings and single entries with security, all our classrooms had an outdoor exit. Anyone could walk into Moore Street school. We could not use the outer door regularly. 

But with a knock on the door, Mr. Kellam could deliver the goods and head off to work without alerting the entire school. He made the entire morning better for every student in that class. 

He might have done it once a month, he might have done it less. Forty-plus years of not thinking about it left me a little hazy. But he came by multiple times, sometimes without doughnuts, but usually with two dozen to cover the class. Unsurprisingly his visits always delighted the class. 

These days I don’t often think about the Dublin years (May 1984-November 1987). They were strangely formative due to the small-town Georgia that stayed segregated. We had a handful of Black children in our classes, a smattering of rich kids (I was briefly friends with one whose last name adorned the park across the street from the elementary school, but it couldn't last, because money matters), and plenty of northerners whose parents came south for the manufacturing jobs That's what brought us. 

Moore Street houses a Grade 6-12 magnet school these days but otherwise looks pretty similar. As for the Kellams, I knew what to expect in 2026. Several neighborhood kids from Dublin had passed away in recent years, so I couldn't expect much from a couple who were gray-haired in 1984. 

Still, I looked them up. Mrs. Kellam's obituary came up in my first search. Mr. Kellam died in November 2000, Mrs. Kellam died in 2026 at age 82. They spent most of their lives in Dublin aside from Mr. Kellam’s time in the Air Force. Her grandson is a doctor in Dublin. 

The obituary didn’t mention Mr. Kellam’s doughnut stops at Mrs. Kellam's classroom. But I still remember.