Birthdays That Alarm Me

 

The birthdays of former students--popping up pretty much every day on Facebook--alarm me, both because of their age and mine.

The first seventh graders I taught in 1966-67 were twelve that year. That means that this year they are all turning 67, if my arithmetic has held together (as many of my former skills have not). They're on Social Security and Medicare. Many are grandparents; it’s possible some have a great- in front of that word.

And I, who turned 22 that year, am now ... 76. A grandfather (twice). A really nice age, as I've been discovering. (Please note the irony.)

Quite a few of my former students have died--and not just from those earliest years. Mortality doesn’t always employ a calendar as many of you well—and sadly—know. In fact, some former students of mine died in my first years of teaching.

This morning a middle-school friend of our son’s reached birthday number forty-nine, a number our own son will reach this summer. I reminded that friend that the year I taught his class in 8th grade, I turned forty-one, a number that mildly alarmed him, I think: They thought I was OLD then.

I kind of did, too, for when I was my son’s age, I was counting down to retirement, which I did when I was barely fifty-two. I’m glad I did, too. Although I loved middle-school teaching (and had some terrific students, some gifted colleagues), Ohio was growing standardized-test crazy, and fun was fleeing the classroom—at least for me.

Right now one of my grandsons is in high school; the other, in middle school.

How can this be?

My own junior high years are as fresh in memory—are actually even more fresh—than what I did last week!

Well, I’m still alive, sort of, and for that I am (mostly) grateful. And it’s so fun to still be in touch with those youngsters who once called me “Mr. Dyer” and who thought I knew everything. Nothing quite like that feeling.