The first time I met Dr. Aldridge was in the Writing Center, freshman year. I had B period free, so that was the time I had to go in to get help with my papers. When I first saw him and he beckoned me to come in, I just knew he was one of those people who was larger than life. The first thing that popped into my head when I heard him talk was, “His voice sounds just like Darth Vader’s!”

And after that first Writing Center session, I thought, “Man, I’d love to have him as my teacher one day.”

That day came last school year, my sophomore year, when I had the privilege of having Dr. Aldridge teach my honors chemistry class.

One of the things I appreciate in all people, not just my teachers, is a sense of humor, and Dr. Aldridge certainly had one. One day in class, Coleman Walker and Dr. A were having a friendly argument over some topic we were talking about in class. It had gone on for about two and half minutes, when Dr. Aldridge abruptly interrupted Coleman and said, “ Ivy League P.H.D., end of story.” Coleman stopped in his tracks and everyone just broke out laughing. It was his usual dry sense of humor that the class had grown to love.

Science and math are two of my least favorite subjects, and his class heavily contained both of those elements. To my surprise, however, he was willing to work as much with me (a guy who had to fight through the year to receive a solid grade in the class), as he was with students like William Kleinheinz, who always just seemed to get it.

Despite his obvious displeasure with my affection for following sports, he still managed to put up talking to me about basketball every once in awhile. When I chose him to be my teacher for the annual Teacher Appreciation basketball game, he and I both knew that my jersey that I gave him to wear for the game would not fit him, as I am of much smaller stature than he was. However, Aldridge still found a way to wear the jersey to my game, cape-style, as he paper-clipped my jersey to his lab coat, going out of his way to make sure I could see him in my jersey when I looked up at the stands.

Even after sophomore year ended and he and I both knew there was no chance I’d ever have him as a teacher again because there was no way I was going to take AP Chemistry, Dr. A still made an effort to maintain a relationship with me. Any time he’d see me in the hallway, Aldridge would always say in his booming voice, “Hello there, Garrett!”

Since my locker in the Science Building is directly across from his room, I would make sure to stick my head in the door and talk to him for a little bit, about whatever: books, TV shows, just life in general. The day I told him I wouldn’t be back at Country Day next year, he walked up, gave me a hug and said,  “The FWCD community will miss you.”

The last thing he ever said to me was, “Good luck in Oklahoma, stop by on Monday to tell me how you played.”

Sadly, I won’t be able to see him Monday because he passed away at the tender age of 60, the result of an unexpected heart attack, while teaching a Duke TIP class on Saturday in his classroom. Yes, he was the smartest human being I have ever known and was always wowing the class with his endless bank of knowledge — like the time he attempted to explain string theory to us — but the thing I loved the most about Dr. Aldridge was his caring nature, and how he made an effort to connect with each and every one of his students. He made a profound, larger than life impact on each and every one of his students in his 31 years at Fort Worth Country Day, and he will be ubiquitously (a word he used frequently) missed by everyone who knew him.