Decades Ago ...

 ... in the fall of 1949

I was in kindergarten; Mrs. Dugan's class; Enid, Oklahoma; I walked every day, several blocks from our house at 1709 E. Broadway Ave. (can you imagine?), sometimes stopping at Kiwanis Park, where I would linger and be late ...


... in the fall of 1959

I was starting my sophomore year at Hiram High School (Hiram, Ohio); I was playing on the JV basketball team and would appear in the musical that winter--Masquerade in Vienna, an adaptation of Die Fledermaus.


... in the fall of 1969

I was beginning my fourth year of teaching--all of them at the old Aurora Middle School (Aurora, Ohio), 7th grade English (we called it "Language Arts"); I had started grad school at Kent State a year or so before, slowly working toward my Master's, and in July of 1969, in one of my classes, I'd met Joyce Coyne; we would marry on December 20, 1969, and I was excited beyond belief (still am); at school, I was writing and directing plays with my students--and I'd learned that teaching was what I loved to do.


... in the fall of 1979

Joyce and I had just returned from teaching a year at Lake Forest College (up the lake shore from Chicago), and I'd learned I preferred middle school--but couldn't get back to Aurora (no openings)--but we both found jobs at Western Reserve Academy; I left a couple of years later to return to Aurora (finally an opening!); Joyce would stay until 1990, when our son graduated from WRA; we both had enjoyed teaching him in class--I in 8th grade, Joyce in 10th and in AP English; in the fall of 1979, he had recently turned 7 and was starting 2nd grade in the Hudson Schools.


... in the fall of 1989

I was back teaching at the middle school in Aurora (a new building--Harmon School); 8th grade; I'd become obsessed with Jack London and would eventually publish some books about him and his most famous work, The Call of the Wild; Joyce was in her final year at WRA--she would move to the faculty of Hiram College after Steve graduated from WRA (she was director of the creative writing program); I was still directing and writing plays with the kids, still loving my time in the classroom.


... in the fall of 1999

I had been retired from Aurora for more than two years; I was now obsessed with another literary figure--Mary Shelley--and had just returned from some weeks in Europe, where I'd been finding places that had bee important to her and her work--esp Frankenstein; my father was fading--and would die at 86 on Nov, 30; Joyce was still at Hiram College; son Steve, now working as a journalist at the Akron Beacon-Journal had married Melissa McGowan in August 1999; my mom had come out for the ceremony.


... in the fall of 2009

I had returned to the faculty of Western Reserve Academy and was teaching three sections of junior English each year--loving it--walking/biking to work (the school is only about 3 blocks from our home in Hudson); we now had two grandsons, Logan and Carson; Joyce was still teaching at Hiram and had won about every teaching award there is at the college.


... in the fall of 2019

I'm sitting at my laptop, typing this blog; my mother died in the spring of 2018; our grandson Logan has started 9th grade at Walsh Jesuit; our grandson Carson is now in 5th grade; Melissa teaches in the nursing school at Kent State and is nearing the end of her Ph.D. program; Steve, who has a law degree (and has passed the bar exam) teaches writing part-time at the University of Akron, works for a think tank (Innovation Ohio--he's their "education guy"), serves on the city council in nearby Green, where they live; Joyce has retired from Hiram and has a book about John Brown coming out after the first of the year--and has finished a draft of yet another book; I write stupid poems every day, am working on the 3rd and final volume of The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, a YA series about a contemporary descendant of Victor Frankenstein, a teenager living in Ohio (the first two are on Kindle Direct); I'm dealing with metastatic prostate cancer--working out most every day--reading madly, drinking lots of coffee--still doing book reviews for Kirkus Reviews (more than 1500 so far)--looking back on a life I've loved. ... a life of incredible good fortune and happiness ...