I’ve just finished my 32nd year of teaching, and – when you consider that I’ve been teaching an extra 2 months for the past 19 years (year-round school dontcha know?) – that’s another 38 months, (or 4-years-and-a-bit) of classroom experience. So I’ve pretty much been teaching for 36 years, and, I’m tired of working.
I’ve started my 24-month countdown to retirement – 24 months being how many more child support payments I have left on Austen. You see, I haven’t really been able to pursue my dreams, or my desired pace of life, because I can’t default on my-flesh-and-blood…I’ve got to make sure that I keep the money stream going till he’s 18.
I remember those Summer afternoons at the Lovell House in Kalamazoo, Michigan – stoned-to-the-bone, listening to MIKE OLDFIELD’S Ommadawn or Hergest Ridge and thinking, I’ve got to soak this indolence and inertness up – because I have a funny feeling that I’m gonna be workin’ for a long-ass time. And soak it up I did.
Right now I’m trying to prepare my juvenile delinquents to compete in academic competition; and, while they are very “up” for the event – they are not accustomed to competing for academic accolades in a team environment. For-most-of-them, their team has always been their local gang – and in that environment — they certainly weren’t trying to demonstrate their smarts. They do manage to do some great research – but they struggle putting their information together into coherent arguments…and, when I try to put together a coherent argument for them – they struggle with cliché and idiom.
Then I talk to my retired acquaintances who tell me how every day is a Saturday for them…every day a Saturday…how I long for that point in time when I can sleep in (past 5:30am anyway) and do whatever I want to do for the entire day: every day!
I can see it now: do we have morning sex and then go for a surf till lunchtime? Or, have a leisurely lunch followed by a nice long nap and afternoon sex (if the energy is still there) – and then create or practice the music till dinner time – with-a-bit-of-puttering in the garden before cracking an ice cold Chardonnay and enjoy the dying of the day amidst the fountains and jasmine and honeysuckle? Then the Jacuzzi always beckons to soak the old bones and caress the body with the water of birth…
On the real Saturday and Sunday, I’d like to fish, just to break up the pattern of the week – and with a decent catch, have Giti cook up a-couple-of nice fat trout.
I’ve now started to look for land, on or close to the water, in Lake Elizabeth – just to get some-of-those-trouth to-put-on-the-barbie.
I mean, how much of our lives are we supposed to spend working? Half-of-it? Three-quarters of it? I’ve been at it for two-thirds of my life – and would just as soon end up working for only 1/3 of my life and enjoying two-thirds of it. So give me 90 years, if you will, and only 35 years of serious labor and I’ll consider this time-on-earth a VERY good deal: let all my remaining daze be Satur(n) Daze…