Poor Little Guy

Although I readily and summarily dispatch with impunity to the appropriate level (based on degree of invasiveness) of insect hell those creeping or flying things that happen to invade my personal space, especially indoors, when in the great outdoors* I prefer to allow God’s little creatures to go about doing their buggy things in peace.

Thus, it was, this morning while riding about on the scooter, that I found my heart breaking for the small bee that’s never going to make it back to his hive because unbeknownst to either of us he was on a collision course that would lead him directly into the path of my helmet.  He smacked into it with a pronounced thunk and bounced off onto the crook of my left elbow where he promptly in great confusion plunged his small stinger into the same area where for the past four days I’d been picked and prodded with needles during my hospital stay.  I flicked him off me hastily and pulled his tiny barb  from my flesh as quickly as I could.

I don’t think much venom got inside me because the pain was brief and my skin didn’t swell, but I felt terrible for the poor little guy, losing his life merely because he happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I’m certain that he didn’t have a thought process like, “Oh!  This guy’s helmet hit me so I’m going to sting him,” going through his small brain.  His act of suicide was totally accidental  I don’t know if they’ll remember him at the hive or do anything to immortalize him for his giving all he had to give, but if I’m watching Jeopardy later and scratching my elbow furiously I’ll be sure to toast his memory with whatever sweet libation I happen to be enjoying.  Perhaps some mead.  It would seem fitting.

 Not the actual bee of whom I write.  Just a random bee in a picture I took in 1997 when digital photography as we've come to know it was still in its infancy.

*I use “great outdoors” loosely.  Generally, I don’t consider being out of my recliner in the living room all that great, unless I’m scootering.

Painting the Town Autumn

Facebook these days is full of young ladies figuratively jumping for joy because pumpkin spice flavored everything will soon be on the shelves and in cups everywhere.  I’m not sure what it is about Autumn and its decors, flavors, goodies, colors and all that stuff that somehow creeps into us and makes us feel a kind of relaxed peacefulness that escapes us the rest of the year, but even though I was never, not for even a fleeting second, a young girl enthralled with Fall, I admit that even as an old man I’m touched by that same spirit this time of year when it’s too cool to take the scooter out in the mornings or evenings without bundling up.

I’ve been savoring my rides as of late, riding relatively slowly up and down side streets all over “da valley” and looking for pretty places to photograph.  Today on such a ride I’m forced to admit that my spirit skipped a beat when I discovered this house already getting into the season that isn’t quite here yet, but will be soon.

And just around the corner from it, this simple decoration that scored the same kind of reaction in old Mr. Grumpypants here.  Not the sort of thing I’d admit feeling to most of the people who know my name and for whom my crusty reputation precedes me, but it’s a feeling that makes me feel inside like, well, pretty much what I imagine it would feel to be in the body of a bride to be with her gang of buzzed ladies in waiting at some random winery with mums and pumpkins decorating the place all over.  Not a bad feeling at all!

 Although I don’t think of Halloween as a holiday of any sort because everybody knows that on a real holiday most people get a day off from work, and in spite of darkening my porch for the past number of years on October 31^st so I don’t have to keep getting off my lazy ass every time the doorbell rings, there’s something I admit to enjoying when I see homes and other places festooned with the props that make it something delightful to many.

 I’m ready for the ambitious folks out there to start painting the town with Autumn and Halloween.  As for me, I’ll be the guy on the scooter taking pictures of your efforts and secretly enjoying them as if I were back in grade school with a lifetime of Falls to come and to look forward to.

No More Back to School

Today is Saturday, August 26, 2017.  Two days ago was the first faculty meeting of the year.  Friday was the last weekday of summer vacation.  Monday will be the inaugural day of school for the 2017-2018 academic year.  Come Tuesday, I will have missed all of those things for the third year running, and I couldn’t be happier!

 Although I didn't realize it when I took this picture in August of 2013, this would be the last "first day of school" for me ever again.

 Without reliving the horrors of the past three years during which I floundered with self doubt, depression, solitude by day, pain, and anxiety I am finally able, this year for the first time, to enjoy the “Back to School” thing as someone removed forever from the experience.

 I rode past here only two days ago, my last school with the windows of my last classroom in view.   I felt a freedom I'd come to fear I'd never know.  The freedom of being done.

 I’m officially done with teaching, with working.  I am now someone who can wake up on a typical morning and plan my day however I’d like.  It seems that I’ve been practicing for this by having and riding a scooter for the past ten years because there’s a lot about a scooter ride that compares to being a man of leisure overall.  There’s a feeling of freedom about both that is incomparable to any other joy I’ve experienced in my life.

 In some ways I feel like this old school might if it were capable of sentient introspection, knowing that my place in education is entirely in the past, but grateful for the good run I had.

 I often describe riding the Piaggio to the uninitiated in the art of scootering as a feeling of being at an amusement park without having to get off the rides.  And that feeling never gets old.  With every ride I take, long or short, I feel some of that same joy that hit me like a bolt from the blue when I rode my first 50 feet on a scooter in the parking lot at the dealership where I bought it.  And every ride is an adventure, whether to the grocery store to pick up a carton of eggs or a long two wheeled stroll on roads I’d not ridden before just to see where they’ll take me.

I plan to take lots of rides like this one with sights of nature's glory to be enjoyed at every turn, and even on the straightaways!

 My best friend suggested to me that it’s going to take some adjusting to come to terms with the pleasure of being able to do what I want, when I want.  I feel that I know what he means on one level; that without some kind of focus I might find myself floundering with many possibilities but without a meaningful feeling or sense of accomplishment.  On the other hand, when comparing the situation to scootering, I don’t know that strings of days on which I don’t know when I get up where I’m going to end up when the sun sets will necessarily be a bad thing.  I don’t know if I’ll need goals beyond the one-day-at-a-time kind to feel fulfilled.  Then again, figuring that out will be a nice adventure in

itself.

  Of all the things I see on the open road, I enjoy the whimsical ones the best, like this unique home adorned with seasonal doo-dads.  Perhaps there are those who experience a similar whimsy in seeing an old guy going by on a scooter looking like it's the best day of his life.

 Tomorrow would have been one of the saddest days of a typical year for me if I needed to return to the classroom - the very last day of savoring the unique kind of freedom that a summer vacation would have provided.  To be certain, I loved teaching for most of the ride, but I’d always identified strongly with the bumper sticker I saw many years ago that read, “A BAD DAY OF FISHING IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD DAY AT WORK.”  

 

I might be closer to the caboose than to the engine, but I still like very much being a part of the train of life.

 Even though I’ve been out of work for three years, on Monday, two days from now I’ll finally be able to enjoy fully the feeling of not having to go back to school to start up another year of counting down the days until another summer vacation might roll around again.  It’s going to be the best academic year ever, because for the first time in 54 years school isn’t going to be something I’ll need to think about at all, unless I find myself scootering through that 15 mph zone with the flashing yellow lights at the times of day during which they’re blinking.