End of the Road
I often find myself at the end of the road when riding the Vespa. Continuing on isn’t possible or desirable. A change in direction is necessary for the journey to continue. It’s uncommon to arrive at the end of the road and think of it as a happy ending. Remembering miles and miles of gravel strewn dirt forest roads only to come to an impassible gate is something other than a happy ending. But that doesn’t happen often.
On a recent, meandering ride to work on a foggy morning I came to a place where I didn’t want to push on through the tall, wet grass replete with ticks and ground hog holes. Besides, it was time to get to work where I was nearing another end of the road.
A Million Steps
A few minutes with a calculator revealed I’ve walked well over a million steps down this hallway in the Agricultural Administration Building at Penn State. I’ve worked in this building for most of my adult life through seven different positions and nine different offices. And standing there yesterday morning as my career comes to an end I was startled by the memories of this austere passage. I felt the young me, the angry me, the excited me, and the old me. All alive, all evaporating.
There’s two parts of this journey — the excitement of what is beyond the door of retirement, and the bittersweet recognition of a life lived that will never come again.
Evidence of Something
There’s evidence of my passage through this place. A series of magazine ads I photographed are displayed in the main lobby of the building. I remember each assignment, the people on the shoot, the equipment hauled on location, the special jabbering I engaged to disarm the subjects. For a moment, I’m at those locations. And then I’m somewhere else, having my cameras disinfected after a depopulation of a poultry house in the 1980s, starting a generator in the woods to light Christmas lights on an evergreen tree for a cover shoot, and sitting in a vineyard at sunset, drinking wine as I waited for the light to be perfect for a photograph.
Walking through the familiar spaces of my office building is suddenly full of ghosts and I don’t feel a happy ending.
Penn State Ag Sciences Time Capsule
I don’t remember exactly what drove the construction of the time capsule. What I do remember is a colleague at work drove the design, construction and content collection. After conversations about how buried capsules are often lost or forgotten after 100 years, a decision was made to create a sculpture that could be continually displayed for that period of time. Either option provides no guarantees.
This capsule is big — perhaps seven feet tall, and heavy with a steel base, stainless steel tubes, and a heavy glass dome. NASA engineers were consulted to identify a sealant that would allow for the air in the dome to be replaced with an inert gas to minimize oxidation and last for 100 years. I won’t be around to see if it worked. Or what people think of the contents.
I’ve walked by this monument for decades without notice. It’s suddenly come to life.
The Last Office
The last of my nine offices. It’s been the second best space to work. Quiet, in the corner of the building near the door, off the beaten path. And only a few dozen steps to the Vespa parked outside. Now it’s being emptied out to make way for someone else as I slip away into the past.
When faculty retire, their presence often persists as they retain offices and labs. They participate in faculty meetings and serve on graduate student committees. There is no parallel experience for staff. We just go away. Some run. But others must feel the weight of the change and how unnatural it all seems to just stop.
It’s not a happy ending.
For most of my career I’ve not always conducted myself in a conventional manner. When pressed for job requirements I often express no dress code and no regular hours. I’ve spoken when I should have shut up and I’ve passed on opportunities that others sought out. I’ve done what I was told and I’ve done what I wanted.
So now, as the last of the sand drains through the hourglass, I’m trying to discern my happy ending. And perhaps more importantly, the path moving forward.
I’m certain the path will lead through this place. And a Vespa scooter will be involved as well.
Good morning Steve, Yesterday I had a couple from Norway visit my shop. They were in DC and heading to Chicago. They read your blog every day and wanted to visit KMS because of your kind words about the shop. I thought that you might find it interesting. Keep up the great job you do with Scooter in the Sticks. Craig Kissell
Hello Craig. Thanks for sharing that story. I’m always happy to point people toward your shop. Still trying to get Kim to see the wisdom of a motorcycle added to my life. Maybe if I can get her to the shop it will all become clear to her.
I may be seeing you sometime today. Have to drop the scooter off for some new shocks. After 35K miles the road is feeling rough!
*laughing*
What are you laughing at? Everyone saying I should get a motorcycle??
Nice reflections that say a lot about time and its passage. I’m probably reading too much into this, but to me, the image of the long, barren hallway struck me hard. It seemed seemed a striking symbol of omega… I’m going to adopt the word retoolment when I exit the official workplace. As usual, wonderful images.
That hallway has conjured different feelings over the years depending where my head was at any given moment. Omega just being one of them. At one time the walls were a pale, institutional green and the over heat fluorescent lights were the old off color nightmares. A group of film students asked permission to use it to shoot a scene for a movie about an old insane asylum. It had that look.
I like the idea of retoolment. Or repurposing. Both work. This morning I’m just seeing a new adventure.
Clean whiteboard, empty desk. It matches the sterile, white hallway with a water cooler. Your job has been a huge part of your life and leaving the security of it behind could be difficult. On Sunday, you always knew where you were going to be for the next five days. For me, the unstructured Ural trip kind of broke the pattern. But then again, I hadn’t completely left yet. For now, I still have an office there and was staff emeritus. Something I didn’t even know existed.
Only three more days. Your office is clean, play hooky. What are they going to do, fire you?
Here it is, Sunday morning, and all I know is where I won’t be tomorrow. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is on thing I have to do but other than that I see a blank canvas. Lot’s of ideas and dreams but no translation yet into actions.
There was no hooky. Had a lot of things to wrap before I left. But when I walked out the door I knew I would never need to come back…
Significance. Security. Identity. I have found these themes popping up a lot lately for me too as I have reached middle age and weighed whether I like who I am and what I do, and what changes I might want to make.
Congratulations on completing your tenure at Penn State. I like the approach you described of not always conducting yourself in a conventional manner. Perhaps that’s why you choose to ride a Vespa.
It was nice seeing you on a campus a couple days ago.
Whatever date middle age arrives, it does seem to bring with it those existential questions. Questions worth pursuing in my opinion though I can say that I did my share of avoidance and denial.
For a long time I just considered myself another staff member like all the others. But over time I realized we were all different in our own unique ways. My next post will explore that a bit. And I’m certain it plays a part in the fact that I ride a Vespa and not a motorcycle. For now…
Steve,
I have been retired since October 21, 2016 on my birthday. Since then I have learned that retirement is a matter of MANAGEMENT — of Time, Talents and Treasures:
• We only have so much TIME in this world so we don’t want to waste it.
• We have useful TALENTS and need to find ways to use them to the benefit of others.
• We have, in retirement, TREASURES, a fixed income, so we need to learn how to best budget the monies that God has given us.
The best to you and your family on your retirement. Will be eager to hear how it is going as you move from one month to another.
Karl, those are fine guidelines — simple and effective. I’ll keep those in mind as I unwind into retirement. Thank you!
Steve;
I retired in 2012. Retirement wasn’t exactly what I predicted it would be. Some things got better, some things seemed more difficult. There were certainly ups and downs, just as there were before I retired.
But I am very thankful for my retirement, and I am very glad I took that step.
As has been mentioned before, retirement is a different experience for everybody. What works for some, doesn’t work for others.
I also experienced many of the emotions you expressed during my last few days at work.
You have to find YOUR way, and you will.
Steel
I think I’m still in the weekend mode so perhaps it won’t be until “Monday” that I’ll realize something is different. And then my own unique retirement experience will commence.
That’s for sharing your experience. It’s always helpful to me to know what other people do or go through, whether riding or life.
Congrats on reaching retirement and a “Bravo Zulu” to you for a job well done for the university and for the writings on your blog especially.
Bravo Zulu is a Navy Term yes, but figured it works just as well as Hooah!
Come out West….Brigitta, the R80 awaits your return. Of course, bring along your better half so Martha and I can meet her.
Thank you Dom. I appreciate the kind words.
Someday I’ll get to meet the R80 again…
Steve,
My husband and I both had lots of emotions swirling around in our heads when we read this post. He could have retired 10 years ago, but chose to stay on until I (10 years younger) could retire, too. We figure we only have one or two more years left to teach (which will make over 50 years of teaching for him and 40 for me) and we both felt chills as we looked at your photo of your empty room and desk. We both tried to picture our classrooms empty, waiting for the next teacher. It was hard to picture, and harder to imagine us not being in them some day.
We both really appreciate your sharing your journey with us. We are following close behind you. We know that retirement will be a tough road for us to walk after all these years in a job and place we love. Hearing about your uncertainties and how you are coping with them, and what you are looking forward to, is helping to make our path more clear. We look forward to your future posts…especially for the next couple of years!
I’m generally slow to feel things — months and years sometimes. So I suspect it will be awhile before my separation from Penn State has meaning. But I have noticed myself looking at things differently — spaces, locations, etc. An odd mix of nostalgia and grief mixed in with excitement. Odd.
I know it’s different for everyone. My father worked in a steel mill and his retirement outlook was different. He was anxious to walk out of that fiery pit and never look back. At least he never mentioned looking back. He wasn’t much of a mentioner.
So I suspect this life change will show up in more than one post. My apologies to anyone arriving solely for recounts of rides.
I don’t know what to say you sound so sad. I wish I could empathize but though I am grateful for a decent pension and so far decent health I am impatient to get going. I am ready to retire but have to wait for four years to get my pension. I have created a mental picture of my last morning, getting up from my desk at 5:59 am, after my last night shift. Taking off my uniform in the bathroom and going downstairs after dropping off my police ID and my door key on my supervisor’s desk. Then unceremoniously dropping my uniform in the trashcan and stepping into the camper van parked in the parking lot and taking off for points south with the wife and the dog. I plan to leave it all behind, never have contact with a cop again if I can help it except in the inevitable traffic stops, and explore South America for as long as I want. And when that gets old I have other horizons.
Of course I may drop dead before then so for the time being here I am taking 911 calls. Bugger.
There is a bit of sadness. I loved my job. It wasn’t something contained in a time frame but rather threaded through my life. At times the two seemed intertwined. I think about it now as someone in a relationship that’s good but for some reason has to leave — a job in another country, a visa denied, something that forces a split. There was no anger, ill will or craving to escape. But I did see the opportunity for another life, another experience, and freedom to make choices in a manner I never have. But there is some sadness, yes. It will pass.
Your own experience seems different — more like my father’s — and I completely understand that feeling. I’ve had jobs when I was young that I felt that way and just walked out the door. I hope you get to that last day and into the camper before you know it.
Will there be a motorcycle on a trailer behind?
Cher, dear, Steve,
Tout ce qui a un début à une fin…
C’est le “jeu de la vie”
Un jour, l’oubli nous perdra dans les limbes du temps et personne ne se souviendra de nous, mais en attendant, roulons avec nos Vespas !!!
Everything that has a beginning to an end …
This is the “game of life”
One day, oblivion will lose us in the limbo of time and nobody will remember us, but in the meantime, we ride with our Vespas !!!
Ah yes, the oblivion. Until then, I will ride the Vespa!
Thanks for those thoughts!
That’s a nice final note. I like those photos too. I’ve visited you there in that office/building 100 times. I wonder if I’ll ever be in that building again now that you aren’t.
Someone may still have need of you Paul!
Keep thinking of one of your assignments, the Agricultural Show in the “Big” City and the thoughts and photographs emanating from same. Then again my mind flips to a photograph from earlier this year? of Junior and Lily close to each other with just their heads in the photograph.
As my own friends have noted time and again am a master with any tool photographic or otherwise placed in my hands. The same adjective applies to you Steve; with so many positions and so many images on public display (both in journals and on surfaces displayed), you too are a master of your trade!
As to ghosts from the past. Ghosts are assumed to be from the past; they can be from the future as well. Stirring in your creative mind was the ghost of your future, leaving employment of 44 years (trust my quote is correct) , with the same employer more or less;
regardless that is a reason for celebration of its own. With the buyout and too, what you have endured physically over the past few years; maybe it is time to leave one sustained adventure and perhaps start something similar yet different. One other article which I found intriguing was where the raw products for the creamery originated and the end result.
I would suggest you purchase a product from said creamery while still employed and maybe do so afterwards. Notice the Vespa has gone in for new shock absorbers. Would assume on your last day, after the going away party, you’ll take the four-wheeled apparatus and in boxes load your employment histories and drive away for the last time.
You will have a dead feeling in the pit of your stomach, I did for the memories good and bad.
I was forced out by court order however the feeling is no less subtle.
In your case too the big university is there for you to see on a daily basis if you so wish; as an institution it overwhelms the municipality of State College and yet you dwell close by yet elsewhere. You don’t have to go there for a daily routine; your routine is now different.
It will take many moons for the feeling of cutting loose to happen.
We shall be watching, from a distance.
Enjoy!
You’ve raised a lot to think about Bryce — from photography to the future. And after nearly 44 years of earning toward retirement — 43.7 years as the state calculates — there is an emptiness of sorts now that I’m gone. How that manifests in the days and weeks I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that I welcome the opportunity to explore another path wherever it takes me.
The campus is only six miles away and there are many things to bring me back — lectures, library, arboretum, museum, galleries, AND the Creamery. So I suspect I’ll run into my colleagues as well.
The last day didn’t involve me driving the car or van. I did ride the Vespa home at the end of the day. I’ll post something about that day.
For now, the only change I see since Friday is that I’m easily meeting my ten thousand steps goal and the dogs are getting a lot more fun time. And Kim and I have watched a movie together! I’m liking things so far.
Hi, Steve,
My retirement twenty-one years ago at age sixty seems as a dim recollection of fond, and sometimes not so fond, memories.
As I would hope for you, the past years post-retirement have been filled with new and fun happenings. My first scooter, moving to New Mexico from that god-forsaken state of Michigan (it is nice in spring and fall), visiting some really very interesting spots out here, forming a scooter-riding group, discovering the ukulele, dealing with twenty-four scooters, my gosh, the list goes on and on!
I’m hoping for you the fun and new and different adventures during your journey through the ups and downs of all to come…stay happy and healthy, Steve…best of everything. And thank you.
Thank you for the kind words and experience Karl. I hope I’m still riding and posting on blogs when I’m 81. I can’t imagine the Vespa not having some sort of dominant role in my life.
Congratulations on your retirement! Don’t think of it as an ending, think of it as a happy new beginning. The beginning of free time to do all of those things you haven’t had enough time to enjoy.
Yep! Full speed ahead!! The list of things is long that I would like to do. I’m going to have to do some prioritizing.
Today is your last day.
Enjoy the goodbyes and move into the slow lane.
Try to have some fun in your weeks filled with Saturdays.
I think you will be fine.
Bill
The last day was good. Will post about it tonight.
I’m loving the notion of weeks full of Saturdays!
A little late here, but…warm congratulations!
It’s certainly strange to suddenly find yourself suddenly bereft of a rigid schedule for the thicker part of the week, and find yourself dealing with the sometimes laughably tricky ordeal of re-prioritizing your time…as if there wasn’t a good-sized list – on paper or simply between the ears – of things you truly wanted to get around to, but couldn’t, on account of your job.
In my case, “retirement” was something that was both quite premature, and forced: that was in November of 2001, when it seemed everything in Gotham (among other parts of the country, not to mention the planet at large) was going off the rails. There was the matter of continuing to do stuff to generate some semblance of income, and intuit instance I came off somewhat luckier than a number of my former colleagues. But I also had to struggle with structuring my time…suddenly there was no clock to punch, literally or figuratively, and I had to carefully sort things out for myself – a balancing act between not frittering away time uselessly and not working myself to death needlessly. The regimentation of a daily work schedule is a distant memory to me now, to the point where the pros and cons of such a daily existence are largely abstract. Save to say that while the transition wasn’t easy, I certainly don’t miss that previous life much.
I will say that I’m looking forward to your postings in your new, largely-unfettered existence, where thoughts and rides can become even more excursive than before. TO contradict Gertrude Stein (who, after all, was referring to Oakland), I think there’s more there there, and you’re certainly going to find it.
Thanks!
I can see how easy it would be to fritter my time away doing nothing in particular. And I can see myself regimenting the days to a torturous degree. I’ll search for the middle sweet spot.
I love the idea of looking for the “there” through some sort of excursive experience. The Vespa and me winding through a forest of digression until we get THERE…
As a small corrective to my post – not counting the typos within – when I say “fritter away”, this doesn’t mean I believe there’s no inherent value in doing absolutely nothing at times. In fact, doing nothing” be quite therapeutic. 🙂
I agree. Sometimes doing nothing is the perfect thing to do.
Congratulations on your retirement! I hope that tinge of sadness disappears for you and that you eventually revel in the freedom to be creative, or not, as you wish!
It’s gone. A week of retirement and I’m looking ahead not behind!
Dear Steve,
It comes as a huge surprise that you have retired. You were a great mentor and friend – and a staple at Ag Sci – not to mention your many contributions and accomplishments in photography/video and distance learning. I’m sure that your friends and hall-ways will miss you.
I hope to follow in your footsteps and retire in about 5 years, ride my Harley (it now has purple and orange flames – yeah!) and spend time in the Caribbean.
You are over a month out now, I hope you are doing well!
Thanks Suzanne — I appreciate your kind words. Retirement has been a long time coming and so far it’s been an interesting experience. I’m staying in touch at the office on a few unfinished projects but they’re a capable group and will do fine without me.
A Harley with purple and orange flames — that should stand out!
Thanks again for saying hello. Maybe we’ll cross paths on the road somewhere.
In reading your post and comments, it strikes me how similar jobs and relationships are. In ending, some bring joy, others loss. While I have no intention of becoming wed to job, a healthy long term friendship would be a triumph. If I some day find myself in a position to manage others I’d do well to remember that I’m facilitating a relationship not directing a machine. We are not cogs!
Bravo Zulu
J
Your thoughts about building relationships rather than being part of a machine — that’s perfect. And I’ve been lucky to have found myself in that place. Now on to new ones.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them.