Joke, No Joke

Dear Maria,

Thanks for the birthday wishes, much appreciated. I did, and only half in jest, joke about becoming Medicare eligible at the beginning of the month. Milestones, you know. And I did once again trot out my standard line about how being upright is all right, not only for my birthday but for a friend as well—older, by the way.

Jokey, but not.

Yesterday the odometer in the truck rolled around finally to 160,000 miles. Not bad for a 2006 that had 35,000 miles on it when I bought it in February of ’07. Hit this mark as I pulled into my driveway after several errands. Made me laugh. I did think that 10 years from now I can be the old guy with that old truck in the neighborhood.

Spare me the retort—too obvious by a million miles.

I have been thinking about your—what would be the word—lament, or uneasiness, or uncertainty about the worthiness of doing the work that you gave so much time, obviously, and effort to for more than 3 decades.

You did the work earnestly and honorably, diligently and passionately. Your employers got their money’s worth, and someone—more than one, no doubt—had a better experience as a result.

And there is that whole modeling behavior element. Surely you were watched doing the job, and so you demonstrated a way of going about the work and your replacement may draw on your example.

Pointedly, I trace some of my efforts in the classroom to a particular teacher in high school. I hope that my work, my approach, served some students well. Some of those students are themselves teaching now, and perhaps they continue directly and/or indirectly under my influence and they will have students who become teachers. And surely my teacher had teachers who influenced him. A long thread reaching back, to be sure, and spinning forward I hope.

Maybe my mantra of one, one reader or one neighbor or one student being reached or touched in a positive manner seems too limited in scope. But that one-at-a-time count can add up, or so I have come to believe.

And then there is that whole example by failure. I’ll save that for another letter—or a book.

I know you are counting the days for your homecoming. Here leaves are yellowing, the grass is showing signs of slowing down—that mowing thing, and August nears its end.

Be well.

Fondly,

srk