My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
One benefit derived from our early return was the opportunity to join a tennis league at The Jamestown Tennis Center. In fact I signed up for two leagues, a singles and doubles series. I found that I could "hold my own" with the competition existing at that time. For a couple of months my point totals gave me the number one ranking in singles. By the end of the season I had slid into second place. Yet the court triumphs did not bring the satisfactions of the classroom. Thus I was gratified for the opportunity to teach an evening class at JCC the following fall (1986). I offered the course, "America Since 1960." It turned out to be a rewarding experience. Still I wasn't sufficiently involved in the community to recapture the sense of identity I had enjoyed at Brockport. Except for the court companions at The Tennis Center and the students in that class I was a stranger in a new community.
The opportunity to participate in several worthwhile activities in the next three years tended to restore my sense of self-worth and to create a feeling of being a citizen of Jamestown. I was asked to become a member of the Board of Directors of The Jamestown Area Adult Day Care Center and before long, had the chance to apply my experience and acquired skills as Chairman of the Program Evaluation Committee. At about the same time I was invited to serve on the Advisory Board of Childen's Place, the First Presbyterian Church's child day care center. So I became actively concerned with problems at both ends of the Life Span. Further, I was tapped as an Elder to serve on The Session of "First Prez." These assignments marked the resumption of a "meeting-full" life and I was beginning to feel at home.
The ties with Brockport continued to provide opportunities for writing and speaking. In the summer of 1986 I had a speaking part in the dedication of The Gordon Allen Administration Building and The Harold Rakov Center for Student Services, both bittersweet tasks of memorializing my close friends and colleagues. The next summer I was invited to be the principal speaker at the annual Alumni Luncheon on Brockport "Alumni Weekend." In the spring and summer of '88 I emceed Kemp Schnell's retirement banquet and delivered the keynote speech at a special banquet honoring the Presidents of The Brockport Alumni Association. Our other contacts with Brockport were largely confined to attending the Honors Convocation and meeting the winners of The Jack Crandall Scholarship.
We spent little time longing for Brockport. Our lives focused on Candy's family and Grandma Carlson but we managed to plan and execute a couple of travel excursions. We took two Caribbean cruises—one in January, '86 and one in January, '87—both on The Royal Caribbean ship, The Nordic Prince. The first included a flight from Buffalo to Miami and a seven-day voyage to Nassau, San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and the Leeward Islands. The second saw us drive to Miami stopping to see Dean Driscoll, a former student, at Kenesaw Mt. College near Atlanta, and enjoying a ten-day cruise with stops at Martinique, St. Martins, Barbados, Antigua, St. Thomas, and St. Johns before returning to Miami. They constituted experiences in luxury living. I would be less than honest if I didn't admit to enjoy being pampered, entertained and treated to "gastronomic debauches." However, I can honestly say that the second trip did trigger some guilt feelings regarding so much self-indulgence. Those feelings were partly assuaged by our participation in the "Shipshape Program" which consisted of calisthenics and daily brisk walks around the ship. I am grateful for the opportunity to sample those sybaritic delights but do not covet a repetition. Two Caribbean cruises are sufficient.
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