I wish I'd done it sooner.

In the mid-1980s, the journalism department at Millersville University was one man: Paul Belgrade.

Belgrade was an unusual person, with slow speech patterns and a tendency to get distracted. During his classes, his attention would often wander to things he saw going on outside our classroom windows. Get him on the subject of reasonable excuses for skipping class -- most of which had to do with the weather, as long as there was no quiz that day -- and you could count on a solid five minutes of enthusiastic ramblings on the topic.

It was widely rumored that, in the 1960s, he'd used a lot of drugs. I have no idea if those rumors were true.

But without question, he knew newspapering, and I learned a lot in his classes. I had been using those skills for well over a quarter-century when, for some reason in 2013, it occurred to me to look him up and say, "Hey, thanks."

Sad to say, he died in 2012 at the age of 75. He'd retired from Millersville in 2005 and moved to Chatham, Massachusetts. From his obituary, I learned a good bit about him -- more, it turned out, than I knew when he was alive. It sounds like he really enjoyed his life.

It also sounds like he was even more interesting than I realized when I was his student. It turns out he served in the Peace Corps, in Micronesia, and he "pursued a career as a professional student until his early 30s, earning several degrees and his doctorate." Following his retirement to Chatham, his obituary tells us, he "grew to be on a first name basis with numerous wildlife including foxes, wild turkeys, and many other beloved species of birds." He apparently knew he was dying, and "in anticipating his demise ... expressed great pleasure at the prospect that he would never again have to shovel snow or complete another IRS tax form."

I suspect he had a hand in writing his own obituary, which unapologetically describes him as "charming, witty, and good-looking," and notes that his daughters will "remember fondly their father's incomparable sense of humor, long yet interesting soliloquies, and caring and nurturing attention."

But I bet he'd have liked it if an old student -- one who still uses the lessons he taught -- had called to thank him for his efforts.

I wish I'd thought to do it before it was too late. I think I would have enjoyed talking with him. I might even have learned more than ever I learned in his classes.

It's been several years now since I made that sad discovery, and I still think about it. If you have anyone from your past who lingers in your mind, don't put off the chance to look them up, while you still have the chance.