Portfolio in Pictures

I saw Doc Hollywood in the movie theater way back in 1991, but it stuck with me over the years. In fact, I have repeated its storyline many times now, but it wasn’t until a year or so ago that my Malibu buddy, Dillon, recognized that it is basically the same storyline as the 2006 Disney Pixar movie, Cars. Must be a pretty good yarn to generate two popular movies.

I share that storyline often because a particular scene generated a personal tradition that I maintain on the back of my office door. In the original movie, the young arrogant doctor arrived at the embarrassing epiphany that the old crotchety doctor knows much more than he suspected. It was a hard and surprising lesson. Later, after learning that truth, the wise old doctor opens an antique armoire in his office to show pictures of the hundreds of babies that he had delivered over the years in that small town that were pasted inside that piece of furniture. The old doctor explained, “Well, this is my portfolio.”

For good reason, although I don’t remember the specific occasion, I remembered that scene during the 2012-2013 academic year, my second working in higher education, and my first in a major administrative role. It occurred to me then that my personal portfolio — what truly matters — would be comprised of each student that I have the honor to serve and see grow into their respective futures.

At the end of that academic year, I made a poster of a collage of pictures taken with students over the course of that year together. And in a sort of homage to Dr. Aurelius Hogue in Doc Hollywood, in place of an antique armoire, I taped my poster to the back of my office door. I told myself that I would look at it from time to time and remember what truly mattered.

I have looked at it more times than I can count, and I now have eleven additional posters taped to the back of my office door for each of the years that followed. Twelve posters for twelve years at three institutions, all filled with precious people and special memories. And I just received my thirteenth in the mail from my first year at Ripon College. If all goes as planned, there are many more to come.

Old Dr. Hogue told young Dr. Stone (aka Doc Hollywood) during his shameful epiphany, “I doubt you’d know crap from Crisco.” But later, discovering a suddenly willing protégé, he taught him gently that it is the people that matter more than anything. The people — “. . . this is my portfolio.”

That’s what the back of my office door says to me.