So Much To Do, So Little Time Left

Well, one more day and I will reach one of those big mile stones of life where one looks at the past and wonders how it could have passed so quickly, and ponders the future wondering if there is enough time left to finish what you haven't started yet. For some, turning thirty or maybe forty or fifty is a traumatic anniversary inducing a crisis of identity. Those calendar ticks were not traumatic for me, no mid-life crisis for me; no changing horses in mid stream; no selling everything for a red Ferrari (or that sky-blue Edsel convertible with push button transmission I saw in the LIFE Magazine in 1958 or 59). Turning sixty-five is a bit different, though. It gives much more pause for thought, an almost where-am-I-and-how-did-I-get-here moment.

Last week I sat at lunch with a substitute teacher who had been a student at Union Middle School in the late 1980s when I was a teacher there. He did not have me as a teacher, but asked me about some of the teachers who had been there at that time. My answers to a couple of those he asked about were: "He retired. I see him occasionally." Or: "He retired. I don't know what happened to him." But for most of his queries the answer was: "He died." Or: "She died." Those answers were repeated over and over with a few variations of the details as I know them.

I taught at Union for 25 years before I transferred to Mount Jordan Middle School in 1998. I was fifty years old and had literally spent half my life teaching at Union when I transferred. While I had an enjoyable time there and made some wonderful friends, I have often wondered if I made any difference in the world by teaching there or if anyone will ask, "What ever happened to Mr. Goodman?". Well, funny I should ask. Last Thursday after visiting the UEA convention, my wife and I were finishing up some shopping at Costco with a Polish Dog lunch. A young man asked me if my name were "Goodman" and if I had taught at Union Middle School. After answering in the affirmative, he introduced himself and said I was his 8th grade English teacher. (That was my last year at Union.) He said thank you. As I shook his hand he said, "You gave me an 'F,' the only one I ever got." Ops, I thought, where is this going? He continued, "I earned every bit of that 'F,' and it changed my life, thank you." He is now a teacher himself as well as his wife. As I left, I stopped by his table and met his wife and two little boys, and he said thank you for the third time. Wow, I guess mean, ol' Mr Goodman did something right-once.

Here is my school picture for year 40 of my career. Not too bad except for the shinny top and the chubby cheeks. My goal of losing sixty-five pounds by age sixty-five was a bust. I lost twenty-five pounds but gained back ten. I fell off the healthy eating wagon and then had the torn meniscus. The knee problem has cut out my walking two to three miles a day for the last three months. Oh well, time to set a new goal.