About a month ago I finished up my last military history course at East Carolina University, and officially retired. (For the previous three years I’d been on “Phased Retirement,” a nice arrangement that let me teach part-time, get half my former salary, and collect my pension simultaneously.) But now it’s over. All that’s left is to clean out my office (best accomplished with a hand grenade).
Thirty-three years is a long time, but it’s still a little hard to believe the end is here. I imagine it all won’t really sink in till the fall semester starts, in August. (“Summer vacation” has ceased to have meaning.) My colleagues in the History Department gave me a nice plaque, and I’ve been told that I’ll get emeritus status as soon as the next academic year starts. (That means a free parking pass and full access to the library.) And I particularly value the letter of thanks I got from the Army lieutenant colonel - a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan - who commands the ECU ROTC detachment. My military history courses have been torturing the cadets for more than three decades now.
I’ve met lots of fine, interesting people (and some I really wish I hadn’t met). I got sick to death of departmental meetings and committee work. But I never got completely burned out on teaching. (I did, however, start feeling like an old fossil - especially when I started getting freshmen who didn’t know how to take notes on a lecture, or take an essay exam.)
Earlier today I went through a stack of exam booklets, to see if there were any I wanted to keep as souvenirs. One from last semester jumped out. The lady in question (a senior whose major, gawd help us, was history education) had already flunked all the other graded exercises in the course, and after a long talk with me had announced that she was going to “turn things around.” She got a 37 (F) on the final exam; it was perfectly obvious that she hadn’t taken notes, read the assignments, or made any other effort to prepare for it. She did, however, append the following note on the last page of her exam booklet:
"Dr. Tilly [sic],
“I apoligize [sic] for not making your head spin with a complete turn around in your class. I have no excuses other than I was not prepared for this semester.Thank you for trying to help me I am grateful for it however I have decided that maybe school is not for me and I should become a stripper. Thanks for everything!”
After re-reading that one, I concluded that yes - it was time to retire.
My father was a college professor too (architecture). I can’t resist quoting the words one of our graduating students said at the awards ceremony:
Dad, I made it.
So, back to the workbench and my Gloucester fishing schooner.
P.S. I meant to post this in the FSM Ready Room, but I hit the wrong button. (Old men do that now and then.) I apologize; I’ve asked the moderators to move it.
Later edit: They did. Thank you, moderators.