PAUL LAWRENCE CROOK

SAN DIEGO and BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – Retired community college professor and South Brewer native Paul Lawrence Crook, 75, passed away Feb. 7, 2010, at the home of his dear friends, Ken and Dana Reed of Bakersfield, Calif., after a brief, but courageous fight with cancer. Born July 29, 1934, Paul was the eldest child of Harvey and Frances Crook of Orrington. He graduated from South Brewer Grammar School and Brewer High School in 1948 and 1952 respectively. While in his senior year, he enlisted in the Navy Reserve and was honorably discharged in 1954. He then enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to an intensive 32-week training school at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. Graduating as a radar repair technician in 1955, Airman 2nd Class Paul Crook was stationed at various installations out West, including Reno, Nev., and Riverside, Calif. After his honorable discharge from active duty, he returned to Maine for a brief period, but California called again and Paul responded. After a memorable cross-country road trip, Paul settled in San Diego, where he held a variety of jobs, among them laborer, construction, forestry service firefighter, aircraft factory worker and others. In the late 1950s, Paul opened a local vacuum cleaner repair business, which he and a partner operated for nearly 10 years. Tiring of small-business ownership, Paul returned to school and graduated with honors from San Diego City College in 1968. Accepted into a bachelor’s degree program at San Diego State College, he finished summa cum laude, graduating in the top three out of nearly 5,000 graduates, in the Class of 1970. In 1976 he returned to San Diego State University and earned his master’s degree in sociology, during which time he met many of the friends that he would remain close to for the rest of his life – Ken and Dana Reed, Bruce and Denise Black, Ken and Francesca Loyd, Morris Mottale, John Dodge, Mike Gerow and others. That year Paul was hired by San Diego Community College District to teach sociology and later, history. For the next 20 years, Paul was one of the top teachers at Mesa College. After full-time retirement in 1996, Paul kept a professional hand in by teaching a class or two, but the lure of travel led him to finally call it quits the following year. Traveling extensively around the western United States, Paul backpacked, hiked and explored a thousand different highways, byways and trails. His love of nature was matched by a fascination with European history and culture, the driving force behind 24 trips to Europe during his retirement years, primarily to France, Italy and Spain. As a sideline, Paul turned his love of books into a profitable enterprise throughout the years. He ranged far and wide, from San Diego to Bakersfield, Calif., to every used bookstore he could find looking for bargain titles that he would typically resell to college bookstores around Southern California. In the process, Paul built a personal library of more than 5,000 volumes on almost every conceivable subject. During these retirement years, Paul made many trips back to Maine to vacation with the family at Schoodic Lake and elsewhere, and to watch his nieces and nephews, and then their kids, grow up. Paul himself had many girlfriends throughout the years, but never married. In addition to many friends around the U.S. and in Europe, Paul is survived by sisters, Jane Barron of Lewiston and Mary-Ellen Gartner of Bryant Pond; and brother, David of Fort Pierce, Fla., and Rome, Maine. Paul also leaves brothers-in-law, Peter Gartner and Frank Barron; and sister-in-law, Barbara Crook, along with their children, to mourn his sudden and unexpected passing.