Thanks, Doc

We have any number of teachers in our lives, many of them outside the classroom.

John "Doc" Enos was one of them for me.

Doc, who died Sunday at age 79, was a reporter for the Gloucester, Mass., Daily Times.

I interned there during the fall semester of 1973 as a junior at the University of New Hampshire. My newspaper reporting internship required me to live in Gloucester and work full-time doing whatever I was assigned to do.

I was clueless and scared to death. Doc made it a lot easier, both by his manner of caring and by the example of his work ethic.

His quiet -- though sometimes grumbling -- demeanor was a calming counterpoint to the gruff, bombastic city editor, Bill Cahill.

He loved Gloucester, loved Gloucester sports; hockey and football were his particular passions. He'd sit through all kinds of games -- freshmen, junior varsity and varsity, even intramural games.

He covered sports, he covered the cops and crime, and just about anything and everything else in Cape Ann.

The memories of his co-workers, shared in emails among us this week, told his story.

"After a couple of violent episodes in Gloucester, I started feeling really anxious sitting in that well-lit, very visible office all alone finishing up the paper," recalled Nan Cobbey. "Doc sensed that so when we were on together he would always find an excuse to stick around until I was able to leave."

"It's hard to say which Enos memory is most quintessentially Doc.It could be his shoveling the walk after every snowfall," recalled Bernie O'Donnell. "Or it could his long-running, high-volume arguments with Cahill over obscure Gloucester trivia that no one else understood (always ending in 'Why don't you just shut up!)"

Or the time, when the lights were out in the office because of a blackout, he drove his car close enough to shine the headlights inside. He sat on the floor at his manual typewriter, doing his story.

Ever the model of ingenuity and efficiency.

At the going-away party at the end of my internship, he was convinced that each one of was would be arrested for drunken driving or drunk and disorderly conduct ... or both.

So he got out his reporter's notebook and a pen and started taking the names, ages and addresses of everyone at the party. He said it would save him time in the morning on deadline when he wrote up the overnight cop report.

Much of the Gloucester Times alumni gathered for a night to honor Doc in 2004 (picture above). Longtime Gloucester editor Peter Watson remembered that when it was Doc's turn to talk, after most everyone had had their chance, Doc said, “I have been sitting here for an hour wondering who you people are talking about.”

Doc's funeral mass was said yesterday at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church in Gloucester. Fitting.

Good voyage, Doc.