Life can be a bit surprising. Never in it did I think that in my 60’s I’d be saying “I’m going back to school after summer break”, but here we are getting ready to do just that. It seems that history is repeating itself, if in a slightly different fashion. 

You may ask “What brings on this particular nostalgia?”  Or you may be asking yourself, “How do I get another beer on Labor Day?”  I can answer the latter- go to the fridge. The former will take a bit of time.

Recently, my wife and I went to Santa Cruz for my aunt Myrna’s celebration of life. Notionally, it is where I started my various college careers.  I started UCSC just shy of my 18^th.  I drove in with Pop, passed the front gate and immediately entered cow pastures without a campus building in sight.  You see, we had never done any college visits outside of LA, so I had no idea what I was getting into.  It was an adjustment.

But I had my family in then sleepy, pre-tech San Jose. I really didn’t know them well. Myrna and Ed and their kids Lori and Karen (Debby had moved out at that point) were someone I visited shortly after I started. Of course, once I settled in I didn’t go as often but heck, that’s a kid for you. They welcomed me in, made a really nice supper, and have treated me as family ever since.

Ed passed a year ago – literally days before we were to visit them in Roseville. And Myrna followed shortly thereafter.  It was their time. At both of their celebrations I commented on how fortunate we were to have them include us in their lives, and I sincerely mean it.

But the conflation of being at Myrna’s celebration AND being in Santa Cruz was something that I didn’t expect.  On the drive up I kept commenting to Lizzy about the various landmarks – Paso was halfway to Santa Cruz, King City the next halfway marker, and so forth. Passing stories of all the drives I had made from my parents’ house. All the time realizing how much they changed.  My car broke down in Paso once; there was literally nothing else around but the Chevron station that I visited. Now it’s all upscale wineries.

Our time in Santa Cruz was split between visiting the beach house with family and driving or walking around the various touchstones in town. But the touchstones had no feel to them – the downtown mall is entirely different, the houses along Westcliff have all been remodeled into mini-mansions – heck the town is now open after 6pm.  I felt a bit lost pointing out landmarks that really didn’t exist anymore. I was a tourist in the town I used to call home; a tourist in my own life.

I kept focusing on the fact that it has been 45 years since I was there. But history does repeat itself, a bit.  In my youth, my standard wear was a flannel shirt over a t-shirt with jeans.  Yep, in my retirement it is a flannel shirt over a t-shirt with jeans.  They’re much nicer quality, and my hair is so-very-much shorter (and grayer). Better yet – after a pause in typing, I checked to see if the hole for my earring had closed and it has not. Don’t tell Lizzy – I’m wearing it while I type; we’ll see if she notices (she didn’t, or at least did not comment).

Also, Pac Cookie is still there.  It opened the same time I arrived; every night at 6pm after I finished work at Woolworths and headed to the bus I would stop in and buy a cookie from Larry (gotta support those Larrys). These were the fresh ones for the next day. Woolworth and Pac Cookie were reduced to rubble by the ’89 quake, but he re-opened and the cookies are still the same. I finished most of them on the way home.

The story doesn’t really end there, mainly because it’s a quiet day and I figure I have time to kill.

Jump forward about 10 years and I’m now back in LA from my Columbia/NYC days. My new girlfriend and I are settling into a Yuppie routine – responsible job, suits and ties, new cars.  The earring and flannels have been stashed, but the hair is still a bit long.  We bought a home, raised a daughter and participated in our careers.

One of those things is my participation in the Taxation Section of the Society of Actuaries.  That makes me sound far smarter than I am – but the folks that I worked with are that smart. Except they did a stupid thing – they let me work as an editor to the Taxing Times journal. My partner Jim kept things going well; I just made a lot of pointless jokes.  True story – the day after I retired most folks were still on New Year’s break; I was penning an article on 7-pay reduction retesting. (Oooooohhhhh, you’re saying, maybe he can be smart. Nope.  Just trying to fool you.)

So, today I received an email with the last digital copy of Taxing Times; a retrospective on various touchstone articles that were printed (mine was deservedly NOT one of them). Seeing my name along with the other contributors in the article reminded me of those times. I was really fortunate to be able to work with these folks and be accepted by them. That said, I realized that my entire career became a footnote.

That’s not a gripe, just an observation. Seeing the article, but being removed from the process, was like visiting the past. I have told my daughter (and others) that one only takes two things with them when they leave a job – you own your work and you own your ethics.  I’d like to believe that I did enough of that.

So now I’m in my third act – retirement. And next week I’ll head back to the library – in a t-shirt and shorts until flannel season arrives – and start doing my best to re-live my school days by tutoring kids in math (I promise – I WILL finish 5^th grade someday). But these are good kids, and they’re always teaching me something. As with my past, I’m still fortunate to be able to do these things in my present.  I’ll gladly own my work in the library and will do my best to do good by these kids.

Seems that I’ve gone full circle now – back to school, back to flannels, back to the past. Just a different way of doing the same things.