I had to take a break in my Drummers’ Series and begin reflecting on my retirement from daily, classroom teaching.
As I bring 33-years-of-high-school teaching to its merciful close on June 30th – I must admit that I have been easing into that “retired” sensation — taking long weekends and limping through 4-day work weeks (I even missed a fight not more than 15 feet away from me just today, but I have been getting up at 5:30am [or earlier] for-the-past-40-some-years – what with being a competitive swimmer and then a swimming coach and then a teacher commuting to school for an 8:00am start [try being a teacher who coaches a swimming team – your mornings begin at 4 or 4:30am]).
I remember walking through snow at 4:45am in Kalamazoo to get to the pool by 5:00am when my swimmers would start to arrive and would swim till 6:30am – when the K-Zoo men’s team would come in. I would be drinking my instant coffee and munching on an apple as I trudged to the pool. That 1977 year – I didn’t swim, but the following year – I worked out after my girls left and heaped insult upon my 4:30am injury.
But I have to go further back to the Summers of Michigan circa, 1967 when I started doing morning workouts at the River Rouge pools of Detroit. By 1972, I was doing morning workouts in Port Elizabeth – with Peter Elliot, and then, Tom Connell. Suffice-to-say, I’ve been getting up plenty early for-plenty-of-years.
I used to like to surf with the Dawn Patrol – those handful of surfers out at sunrise at the choice So Cal surf spots. But now I’d just as soon sleep in and get in the water around 10:00am to grab whatever wave I can get just to get wet and clear my sinuses.
I think I’m going to like retirement – when I don’t have to be anywhere for anyone at anytime…of course, I’m sure I’ll be able to make a college class-or-three in the late afternoons or early evenings – just to make sure my brain doesn’t turn to mush.
I am already experiencing a return to dreaming when I get to put in those extra hours of sleep on my long weekends. And my dreams hang about me as I move through my home – instead of being cast off when I enter the work-a-day-world. Lyrics and melodies filter in with the morning sun. They too, hover around me as I water the fruit trees and saunter about the garden. I’m wondering if it’s because my 40-year hunt for a “lost song” finally ended when I discovered the song to be Oh No No No off of DEEP PURPLE’S “Tales from the Book of Taliesyn” which I first heard in a deep reverie at the Hogsback resort in South Africa. Perhaps I may finally be able to continue saying-something-about-something — now that the world is becoming less with me late and soon…
Don’t get me wrong – I still read my beloved Times on my days off – so I know what the Washington Assholes, and the wannabe Washington Assholes are going on about – but I really don’t have to worry about them anymore – because they’ve already led us down the path of destruction, and, I would just as soon enjoy the destruction than fight against it…
P.S.
Thank God for Tami A. She keeps me honest. Her research suggests that my “I Told You So” mention of a Mr. Swinton was horribly outdated, and, outrageously embellished. I’m feeling like Dan Rather here!