A Day in the Life of a Would-Be (But Will-Be?) Retiree

A Day in the Life of a  Would-Be (But Will-Be?)  Retiree

 (What is the penalty for an attempted retirement, if you don't successfully commit one?)

            "What are your plans after retirement?"  people ask, and you say, "Oh, First I'm going to close Guantanamo Bay.  Then I'm going to do away with factory farming.  And then, I guess I'd better take on climate change."

            But --besides going to a lot of retirement mini-celebrations given to you by thoughtful friends who think you've retired-- what you really do after your official retirement is try to retire.  You have to be retired to have the time and energy to go through those steps and those missteps, which are about equal in number, with the missteps slightly ahead.

            You were rumored to have retired on May 24, 2014,  the day after you gave your final exam and attended--in the bleachers on the spur of the moment instead of in cap and gown as you once did at the Masonic Auditorium--the graduation ceremony that showed why your college--threatened with closure--should continue even though you hope you won't have to.  The student commencement address was given by Latonia Williams, who was featured as one of the 5 success stories that Nanette Asimov did on CCSF in February 2014 "Students tell how City College of S.F. has given them hope."  When you  graduated from college (and maybe that’s why you skipped your graduation ceremony), student speakers didn’t begin by saying, “After witnessing your father kill your mother and being so high on heroin that your baby is taken away from you…” But that was  her back story before graduating with honors. As she said, she went from “a hopeless dope fiend to a dopeless hope fiend!”  Tammy Vitai, one more articulate speaker and one with roots in Tonga, where you went shortly after your own graduation,  was someone in the community you learned about from a friend who plays the saxophone in a jazz group at The Old Skool, a restaurant run by "youths at risk" where you went to eat the night the place was featured on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer as heroes in the news.   The Old Skool is in an at-risk section of town, the Bayview-Hunters Point district, near the Southeast Campus of your college.  The National Anthem was sung by a student from Turkey, and Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar winning screenwriter of Milk, was the commencement speaker.  You had been drawn in by the music, the Pomp and Circumstance you know is from a British hymn all about world domination, but it still chokes you up because you associate it with something loftier.  This seemed like a fitting commencement to your retirement, and sure enough your retirement was just commencing.

            It's also significant that this is the month of the World Cup, something that's starting to interest you more because you love and are loved by (though perhaps not as much as soccer is) by a World Cup fanatic, and you can also identify people longing to reach a goal when there are so many interferences and the referees don't always seem to make the right call.  Two days ago, you got an e-message on the subject of the World Cup from a former student who's a professional soccer player and soccer coach:

"It is great event and I am trying to get each game.  I wish USA team a good luck tomorrow.  If they will so energetic and powerful us you was on our classes they'll win.  But I am upset little bit because Russia is playing so bad in Brazil and that you was retired and I won't to see you more."

           

            That charming student--the one who took three of your classes and never learned to finish in the time limit--is one of your favorites.  He's the one who, presenting on SLOs, the Student Learning Outcomes your college has been asked to emphasize, showed his usual good sense of humor, beginning his final oral presentation saying, "SLO stands for Student Love Obama."  You were the only one who laughed.  Getting the students to respond always demanded overtime, and there was a penalty for that.  Now he  thinks you've retired!   But here you are on June 23, and  you have a month between the date you've given as your retirement date, May 24, and the submission of the paper work the will provide your pension and your medical and hospital coverage. So much for Guantanamo Bay, factory farming, and climate change.