CANNON FODDER

June, 2000

I was standing in front of my classroom with my briefcase in one hand and a box of personal items from my desk under the other arm. I was about to leave the high school campus for the last time.

This day marked the end of a thirty year career as a high school math teacher. The school staff had hosted a small retirement luncheon for me earlier in the day. I had turned in my final grades and keys, said goodbye to friends and students, and now returned to my room to clean out a few last things.

I stood at the door to the room for several minutes. It was difficult to walk away, knowing it would be forever. Teaching was my identity, my only function in this small Sierra foothill community, my one significant contribution to society. I was not finding it easy to leave.

For the last few years I had suspected that retirement was near. I was in my late fifties and the job was beginning to take more energy than I was able to give it. Teenagers are a wonderful but exasperating form of humanity. I had thoroughly enjoyed my years in the education, but teaching mathematics (not everyone’s favorite subject) to adolescents can be a real challenge. I had many wonderful young people pass through my classroom. I always became very emotional at the end of the year when they graduated and went on to college and careers of their own. Some of these young men and women had been in my classes for all four of their high school years. It was like watching your own children leave year after year.

But all too often I also had to deal with unmotivated, rebellious students for whom math was a four letter word, a subject which had no meaning in their lives. Making mathematics meaningful and interesting to them was always a challenge. These students were just as important as the high achievers and would eventually go on to become decent, solid members of society, but this type of teaching had worn me down over the years and my health began to suffer. Still, it took a three day stay in the hospital, when the doctors suspected I might be having a heart attack, and long talks with my personal physician and my wife, Janine, to convince me to accept an early retirement. As I walked to my truck and drove away from the campus for the last time, I was fighting back tears.

That summer was no different from many others. Janine and I took several short trips to the California coast and the Sacramento area,  worked on projects around our house, and generally relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company. This is something we don’t get to do a lot of during the school year.

September neared and Janine began her preparations for school. (She is several years younger than me and teaches at one of our local elementary schools.) I became very nostalgic. This is always an exciting time for teachers. You are relaxed, yet invigorated and looking forward to the new groups of students you are going to have. I knew this would be a difficult time for me and I could see that I was going to have to make a few adjustments in my life.

Since my decision to retire had been hastily made, I had not given much thought as to how I would spend all the extra time I was going to have on my hands. I was committed to improving my health and had made resolutions to join a local gym and lose some weight, but that still left a pretty empty calendar. Janine, of course, immediately came up with a few suggestions - laundry, dishes, cooking, vacuuming, ironing, painting the house--

I’ve always thought that when I retired I would work on projects around the house. I would read good books and relax more. I would travel, see those parts of America that I had not yet visited, maybe even get to Europe. However the reality is that when you’ve been on the merry-go-round for most of your life, where your daily routine is dictated by your employment and all the responsibilities of a family and home, suddenly finding yourself with all this time on your hands can be very intimidating.

I really couldn’t take off on extended trips by myself during the week. Even if I wanted to travel by myself, which I didn’t, I couldn’t leave Janine

alone with all the responsibilities of the house in addition to her job. Receiving postcards from her husband from far away places, while she was grading stacks of  homework papers, would not go over well.

The first couple of weeks after Janine started back to school, I really enjoyed my new found freedom. I would do a few chores around the house, take a nap, eat lunch, do a little reading, take another nap, and then it would be time to fix one of the three entrees I knew how to prepare for dinner. I soon found myself gaining weight and watching far too much daytime television. I also noticed that when Janine mentioned something about the characters or events from her favorite soap opera, I actually knew what she was talking about. This was not a good sign.