Retirement

 I awoke in the middle of the night last night and thought about how it was almost exactly 24 years ago that I retired from my public-school teaching career, all of which was in Aurora, Ohio--first in the Aurora Middle School (see pic of the yearbook issued my first year on the job, 1966-67), then at the new Harmon School (was it 1974 when it opened?).

I had a tremendous time at both places. I made so many mistakes, had many wonderful colleagues and mentors, made so many mistakes, made so many mistakes, made so many mistakes ... ad infinitum.

Although I began and retired in Aurora, I wasn't always there. I left in 1978: Joyce and I had finished our doctorates and headed off to Lake Forest College (north of Chicago) where we both planned to teach the rest of our careers. But ... I didn't like my job ... I missed middle-schoolers ... so we ended up staying only that single year.

I tried to get back to Aurora, but there were no jobs, but we were fortunate to find positions at Western Reserve Academy back in Hudson, Ohio. A boarding school.  I made some great friends there, but I got annoyed with the Headmaster and abruptly quit at the end of a single year, thinking I'd find another job easily. I didn't.

Joyce stayed until 1990 when our son graduated from WRA, while I floundered around. I worked part-time at The Learned Owl (the local bookstore) and taught freshman English part-time at Kent State University. I enjoyed both gigs but didn't exactly rake in the cash.

I got an interview at a private school near Cleveland and accepted their job offer. Then, one day at Kent State, I ran into an old Aurora colleague who told me that one of the Harmon English teachers was retiring. I jumped at it. Aurora hired me back, the school board agreeing with a massive majority: 3-2. I'd left Aurora right after a teachers' strike there in the spring of 1978, and some of the board were annoyed at some of our activities.

So ... back to Harmon I went and had a wonderful time from 1982-1997: taught (mostly) 7th and 8th grade English, directed nearly forty plays, coached basketball (my first year), worked with student council, the school newspaper, took kids on field trips to see plays in Cleveland, accompanied 8th graders to Washington, DC, and enjoyed a couple of sabbaticals, enabling me to finish my work on my Ph.D., and do research on Jack London (making it possible for me to publish some books on him--one, a YA biography was published by Scholastic Press, also the American publisher of the Harry Potter books--guess who sold better?), etc., etc.

I had wonderful colleagues, wonderful students, but by the mid-1990s Ohio had become consumed by standardized tests, and the joy began fleeing from the classroom like honeybees from smoke. Scores, scores, scores--it seemed all anyone thought about, cared about.

And so I decided to retire the first day I was eligible: January 16, 1997. I was only 52 but had logged in 30 years in the retirement system. Enough.

And I spent many of the subsequent years reading, writing, traveling, reviewing books (did a couple hundred for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, over 1550 for Kirkus Reviews).

I rejoined the faculty at WRA and had an enjoyable ten years beginning in the fall of 2001.

Then ... health issues arrived. And soon they drove me out of the profession: I could no longer count on my body to propel me through the day.

And now I look back on it all with gratitude for all the magnificent people I met. I have many Facebook friends and the vast majority of them are former colleagues and students. What a gift!

I’d never really planned to be a teacher—I sort of fell into it. And when I landed, I discovered I’d landed in Wonderland.