End and Beginning

For the last 38 years I have been a public school employee. The time was spent teaching at Hartland High School for most part, with the exception of a couple of year diversion as assistant principal. All that came to an end today with my retirement.

The school district and the state of Michigan offered incentives for older and more expensive teachers to call it quits and make room for younger and less expensive teachers. I was planning to teach for a couple of more years and call it quits at 62 when I could get social security along with my pension to provide for enjoying a life with fewer demands. But the monetary incentives made it unnecessary to wait. So here I am retired a couple of years earlier than I had planned.

The day was busy filled with the usual end of school year administrative and house keeping tasks. Grades for all students had to be finalized and recorded. Textbooks had to be inventoried and stored away. But the room had to be cleaned out a little differently this year. Nothing was to be left to be used next September. Anything that was not wanted by another staff member was thrown in the the trash. All the personal items worth saving were boxed to take home not stored away to be used another school year.

I usually keep my keys over the summer so that I can do work in the labs I work in, but not this time. The turning the keys over to Alice was a tangible gesture of leaving in a way that meant I would not be returning. With the incentives there were more retirees at the end of school party and the good by hugs and farewells were different from the see you in September that usually take place.

I will miss most but not all the people I work with, just as I am sure there will be those who will not miss me. I have 38 yearbooks to commemorate the years at Hartland. I had many of the people I will miss sign this final volume in a sentimental gesture. My sister told me recently that she had thrown out all of her yearbooks. It may be yet another example of my inability to let anything go, but they serve as a record of a interesting career.

There won't be much time to sit and reflect on the past as my wife, Carol, and I plunge forward into a number of changes. The biggest change is to pull up stakes and move from Michigan to Georgia to be nearer our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. Getting the house ready to sell, showing and selling it, finding a new place to hang our hat will be a major theme for the coming months.

Along with this effort and weaving its way through out my activities will be the redefining myself as something other than the teacher I have been for the better part of four decades. I have of course been a husband, father, brother and other roles during that time but the job that defined me was that of teaching. I have read a couple of books about this process and I am actually looking forward to playing with my redesign.

The days ahead will tell what Munday Part II looks like.