At the old hilltop college where the cold winds blew,
There taught a professor that nobody knew
Quite how to explain, quite how to define—
A man who seemed balanced by losing his mind.
Howie strode in mornings with papers askew,
A coffee-stained notebook and one mismatched shoe.
He’d lecture on Freud, then detour to crows,
Then somehow tie both to the shape of your nose.
“Reality’s fragile!” he’d suddenly cry,
While pointing a yardstick directly at the sky.
The freshmen would blink, the seniors would grin,
Because somehow by finals it all settled in.
He’d pace like a preacher, he’d rant like a bard,
He’d turn every classroom discussion up hard.
One minute statistics, the next minute fate,
Then twenty-five minutes on why pigeons wait.
The textbooks were useful, but not half as much
As watching old Howie go gloriously off-clutch.
He’d challenge assumptions and twist every rule,
A beautiful menace to orderly school.
Some called him eccentric, some called him bizarre,
A comet of chaos, a runaway star.
But under the thunder, the tangents, the smoke,
Was a teacher who cared for the minds he awoke.
Now the halls seem quieter, the classrooms less wild,
No professor arriving with the grin of a child.
No impossible stories, no philosophical spree,
No debates about consciousness sparked over tea.
And somewhere, we figure, beyond what we know,
He’s lecturing angels in heaven’s front row.
Explaining cognition to saints on a cloud,
Making the cherubim question out loud.
So here’s to Howie, delightfully strange,
Who taught us that learning requires some change.
A little bit wisdom, a little bit crazy—
The kind of professor whose memory stays easy.
For some leave behind books, and some leave behind fame,
But the best leave behind stories attached to their name.
And up on the mountain, through laughter and tears,
We’ll be telling the Howie tales for years and years.
