Happy Phased-In Retirement, Ed Wilson

Everywhere I turn lately, I am confronted with the notion of retirement. I have lifelong friends who have been retired for almost a decade, some who have recently retired and just this week; one of my dearest friends, Joel Edward (Ed or Head) Wlison, begins his phased-in retirement from his 35-year teaching career, over 30 of which were at Eastern Kentucky University in the math department. It would not bother me so much, but it took me four and a half years of undergraduate work in English and Psychology, two years working on a masters in Psychology and seven years finishing a Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology; to get in to my profession. Then it took me from 1988 until 2005 to become a full professor. So, I have been a “Professor” for less than a decade! Until recently, I have considered the high time-and-effort cost of getting my job, to be so great; I would probably never retire. Now, I must say, watching friends retire and mulling over my own options, I am having second thoughts.

Ed and I have run a lot together - pretty much every time we see one another. He ran cross-country in high school and was pretty good at it. I did not become a more serious runner until later in life, running my first marathon in 2003; and it was as if Ed was thrilled to see one of his friends get into something he had loved as a young man, and so he revived his running around the time I started mine and we have run over a dozen races together over the last decade, and are both signed up for the St. Jude Marathon this coming December.

This past spring, Ed and I were running in Pigeon Forge, where we and other friends were gathered for some rest and relaxation. We tend to run from the Tanger Outlets toward Gatlinburg and on many days, we go all the way to the official end of Pigeon Forge, turn around and run back to the outlets. On this occasion, we were running along and he was slightly ahead of me when we came to an intersection. He thought the young lady in the cool little jeep saw him, so he ran on, but just as he was in front of her vehicle, she took off rapidly; trying to beat the oncoming traffic, obviously not having seen Ed. He put his hand on the right front fender of her vehicle and pushed himself back, doing a little dance and giving himself clearance as she zoomed out into the traffic. Apparently she looked in her mirror and saw what she had done because despite the fact that she was now out in the traffic, she slowed almost to a stop as if to apologize. She motioned with her hand, as if to say she was sorry and moved ahead.

I watched the whole thing unfold in a few seconds and I must say it shook me. Ed and I have both had close calls before, but this one was really close and if Ed had been hit, I would have been a few feet away from it. After we finished running, I texted my wife that Ed had almost been hit by a car and I had seen it all happen, and though I was pretty shaken, I was going to be okay and for her not to worry about me. As you can tell, I was being my usual hilarious self.

The truth is, though, life is all about us; isn’t it? Ed and I kept on running that day and on our way back to the outlets, I started quizzing him on the details of his pending phased retirement. He told me what was going to happen, how it would take a total of three years, how he would probably only teach in the Fall from now on and such. I told how I felt about him and our other friends retiring, how I would rather not even think about it.

You see, Ed being almost hit in front of my eyes and Ed retiring so soon while I am still trying to enjoy my career; both illustrate, how our only way of experiencing the world is personal. I can empathize, I can commiserate, I can even grieve; but I am trapped in a private room.  

I can only feel what goes on inside my own skin. I am glad Ed was not hit. I suppose I am okay with him retiring. But ultimately my ostensibly humorous text to Tanga, was accurate. I deeply love Ed and my three other close friends who have retired and I certainly do not want to see any of them mowed down by a jeep; but in the end, it is about what their retirements and their fates in general mean to me being mowed down or not and to me retiring or not.

Someone has said, all of poetry is about death and I can see that. Over the course of my life, I have written hundreds of poems and no matter what each was “about”, I am sure death or its career equivalent – retirement, were not far from my mind. It takes a sense of urgency to write a poem and the greatest urgency comes from finality.

I hope Ed and my other recently-retired or soon-to-retire friends have great retirements and live longer even than I do – of course, I plan to live forever; but sometimes the thought of all this finality, fills me with such urgency, all I want to do is write poetry.

As I said, recently my thoughts have begun to change. What if I had more time to write poetry, short stories, and who knows what else? How many more years will I be capable of producing anything like art, something of quality? When I think of it this way, it makes me wonder if Ed and my other retired friends are not on to something. Maybe it’s time for me to begin figuring out a way to move on to the next phase of life, the phase when I apply my energy to what matters most – to “setting the record straight.”

Here is a poem I wrote recently on the subject:

I knew it early on…

Or had a sneaking suspicion, anyways…

This thing will have a hairy ending

I got the feeling when at four years old

The preacher scared me under conviction

And I cried to the alter

And was later baptized

It hit me again when I surrendered to preach

Before I was old enough to drive

It was in the back of my mind

Nights in the dorm

When my view of eternity began to blur

But it may have hit me hardest

The Saturday night I married

Or was it the Wednesday night

My daughter was born?

The few pictures from those evenings

Show me in a trance

And now, as well as I can infer

Some people think of me as old

Or as they say - older

Fading like newspaper in the sun

They exclude me from young-people dreams

I have begun to see my age in large numbers

On buildings, on passing cars, or in the sky

As I run through my town

It’s true…I have long suspicioned it to be so

I get the feeling

I may have to speak my mind

To exert myself

Pretty soon I think the day is coming

I may have to set the record straight

Finally, summoning up all my selflessness, - all three or four ounces of it -  let me say this:

Happy phased-in retirement Ed Wilson and watch out for those jeeps.