I’ve been thinking again.
Always a potentially dangerous activity.
A friend of mine is considering retiring from the same college I retired from. He’s putting in forty years, if you count his time as a student. I did the same. No wonder we were—and are—friends.
It would be easy to define the job by what we did. The titles. The tasks. And when someone asks me what I did at the college, I usually do just that—I pick and choose a few details. But then I remember my mother.
I had at least a dozen job titles over the years. Some were connected, some wildly different. But when I’d ask her, “Do you know what I’m doing now, Mom?”—she always said the same thing:
“You’re working at the college!”
And that was truer than any title.
If I’d had the money, I might’ve paid my own salary—just for the privilege of staying. I probably should’ve told financial services that.
So what was the college?
Sure, it was a place. A set of buildings. But buildings change. They grow old. Sometimes they get torn down. My high school is now shattered brick in a landfill somewhere. What’s left is the memory of people—classmates, teachers. The college is no different.
Here’s where it gets hard: when longtime staff forget the shoulders they first stood on. Because the college isn’t stone and glass.
It’s people.
First, it’s students. But they come and go—fast. That’s as it should be. They’re the river—always water, but never the same water. You only cross it once, even if you cross it a hundred times.
Then there are the colleagues. They last longer than the students. They’re the soul. They’re the ones in the foxholes with you. They stay for decades, and then—like everyone—they leave. They grow tired, or bitter, or quietly disappear into retirement.
When I think of the college, I don’t think of departments or renovations. I think of:
Sam Chapman, Pat Anania, Paul Pernish, Wolterbeek, Robert Pence (always in an ascot), Tarp, Orr, Horner, Oberst…
and so many others.
They’re all gone now.
The college I knew is gone.
And now, one more will be gone soon.
I miss them all.
A Work Progressing 
Colleagues
I’ve been thinking again.
Always a potentially dangerous activity.
A friend of mine is considering retiring from the same college I retired from. He’s putting in forty years, if you count his time as a student. I did the same. No wonder we were—and are—friends.
It would be easy to define the job by what we did. The titles. The tasks. And when someone asks me what I did at the college, I usually do just that—I pick and choose a few details. But then I remember my mother.
I had at least a dozen job titles over the years. Some were connected, some wildly different. But when I’d ask her, “Do you know what I’m doing now, Mom?”—she always said the same thing:
“You’re working at the college!”
And that was truer than any title.
If I’d had the money, I might’ve paid my own salary—just for the privilege of staying. I probably should’ve told financial services that.
So what was the college?
Sure, it was a place. A set of buildings. But buildings change. They grow old. Sometimes they get torn down. My high school is now shattered brick in a landfill somewhere. What’s left is the memory of people—classmates, teachers. The college is no different.
Here’s where it gets hard: when longtime staff forget the shoulders they first stood on. Because the college isn’t stone and glass.
It’s people.
First, it’s students. But they come and go—fast. That’s as it should be. They’re the river—always water, but never the same water. You only cross it once, even if you cross it a hundred times.
Then there are the colleagues. They last longer than the students. They’re the soul. They’re the ones in the foxholes with you. They stay for decades, and then—like everyone—they leave. They grow tired, or bitter, or quietly disappear into retirement.
When I think of the college, I don’t think of departments or renovations. I think of:
Sam Chapman, Pat Anania, Paul Pernish, Wolterbeek, Robert Pence (always in an ascot), Tarp, Orr, Horner, Oberst…
and so many others.
They’re all gone now.
The college I knew is gone.
And now, one more will be gone soon.
I miss them all.
Share this: