Bernard “Doc” Mann started playing chess in 1917 when he was 11 years old, He didn’t get serious about it, though, until 1996 – when he was 90.
Until just a few years ago, Doc was teaching the game to young students at seven Bangor schools and the Bangor Y and during weekly visits to summer campers at Camp Jordan.
He fit the lessons in between visits to the Hammond Street Senior Center, where he started to go at the age of 89. It was there that he indulged in another true love – music. He also regularly visited and volunteered at nursing homes and hospitals and was a communicant at St. John’s Catholic Church.
It was at the senior center two years ago that his friends celebrated his 100th birthday, while he entertained at his familiar perch on the piano bench. He played the “Happy Birthday” song himself as his friends sang along, noting that the song was actually only 16 years older than he was.
He once told a reporter that if he had to he could live without chess, but not music.
Doc passed away at his home on Tuesday. He was 101 years old, just a bit more than a month shy of his 102nd birthday.
There are many things to be learned from Doc’s life — things such as the importance of education, hard work, spirituality, the value of good parenting and staying vibrant as you age.
But among all of it perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned from the way Doc lived his life is the importance of loving your community.
Because Doc Mann certainly loved this city.
He was born here in 1909 and never wandered far.
He graduated from Bangor High School in 1927 and the University of Maine in 1931 with a B.A. in languages, and then received his master’s degree in French from there in 1933.
In 1935 he was hired to teach French at Bangor High School. Five years later, when Garland Street Junior High opened, he was asked to transfer there to teach French and Latin. Several years later the Mary Snow School needed a male teacher, and he transferred there.
He later went to work at Eastern Maine Technical College as the school’s librarian, golf coach and English teacher.
He got his nickname in the 1930s when he was volunteering with the Red Cross and with the Health and Safety program with the Boy Scouts.
“I was health- and safety-minded,” he once told a writer. “I began to do first aid work [at Boy Scout camp] and one day I was coming down the path and I had a little black bag. … Somebody saw me with my black bag and said, ‘We’re all set now; here comes Doc.’ That’s how names get born and stayed all this time,” he said.
He worked at the Boy Scout camps for more than 32 years until longtime Camp Jordan director Bill Bennett set his eyes upon him and went about recruiting him.
“I decided I would go there as a change of pace. I spent the next 21 years at Camp Jordan at the YMCA,” Mann told a writer with the Maine Chess Association.
Doc Mann left his mark on this city and this region.
He held leadership positions in the Boy Scouts of America’s Katahdin Area Council. The Doc Mann Lodge at Camp Roosevelt was named in his honor, as was a learning center for the council’s ecology program. He also was awarded the Silver Beaver Award for his commitment to the Boy Scouts.
Each year a person showing outstanding dedication to the area’s youth is awarded the Doc Mann Youth Services Award at the YMCA.
Things are named after Doc, not because he donated huge amounts of money to a particular cause, but because he spent his entire life donating his time and his great wisdom.
If a Renaissance man is defined as someone with a variety of skill and a deep, broad base of knowledge, than Doc Mann was certainly one.
And he so naturally and willingly shared it with this community.
And this community is oh so much better for it.