There was a celebration of some sort in the gym that day--I don't know why or what anymore, but the place was full of those blow-up monstrosities little kids love, huge bouncy things you can get yourself lost in, including, as I remember, a formidable balloon-ish obstacle course half the gym wide. All of this for college kids.
"Come on, Dr. Schaap--I'll race ya'," some kid said. She meant it, as did the gang around her.
I took one look down that air-bubble fun park and shook my head. "I'm an old man," I said with a level of seriousness I wanted them to refute. They didn't.
Some moments somehow balloon out of proportion for good reason, and that was one of them. I was a year away from retirement, greatly looking forward to it and ever more conscious of the royal gorge between me and the 20-year-olds. The moment that young lady turned and took off down that silly track without me, I felt a crushing realization that what I was going to miss the moment I walked out of the office door was no longer having kids around to keep me young.
There'd be more such moments, too, but not until this morning did I think much about what else I left behind when I left the classroom. Tish Warren's eighth resolution, "good for the soul," comes from Dorena Williamson, who answered, simply, "Encourage the people around you."
“My reSOULution," Williamson wrote, "is to look for an opportunity every day to give encouragement to someone in my path, whether that be a family member, a colleague, a cashier or a child."
I don't know that anyone could teach for as long as I did and not spoon out thousands of encouragements. I don't remember one of them right off-hand, but I always believed there should be something good to say about even a wretched student paper.
Reading stacks of student papers is now ten-years gone, finished, over, along with it, however, the daily, hourly opportunity to say good things. No longer in the company of kids, for that matter, in this Covid-world, no longer often in the company of people, I have to be reminded, I guess, to "Encourage the people around you." Not long ago so many humanoids occupied a seat in my life that they'd drive me half-nuts, until finally, for a spell at least, they'd go home.
Trust me on this, there's an unspoken camaraderie among old folks working out in a college gym. We nod, say hi, even though we don't know each other at all; but rare as hens' teeth among kids on weights or machines, we acknowledge our anomaly-ness and say hi, meaning, I suppose, "keep the faith."
The really old guy no longer comes around. His obit came up in the paper a couple of weeks ago, a much beloved former coach who was so legendary that an addition of the facility is actually named in his honor. He used to come by mid-afternoon with a basketball under his arm and then try to work up a game of H-O-R-S-E with any kid willing to give him ten minutes. Always smiling. Sometimes winning, I bet.
With him, there was always more than a nod for me. He'd stop when we passed. "Did you get a good workout?" he'd ask me, smiling but dead serious, time after time. I don't think he knew me at all, but he couldn't help saying something to the other old guy, something, well, nice.
I'd smile and nod, even though when you're my age and size, no workout is "good"--"good for you?" sure, but "good"? Nah. You're just trying to keep Father Time outside the back door.
Anyway, he's gone now, and I miss him, as do a thousand others. In the local paper, his life was lovingly heralded, as he was in social media. From what little I know of him, I'm guessing the man was hyper-blessed because he gave that blessedness away until he could no longer hit a three-pointer.
I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, and even the thought of some of those Tish Harrison Warren lines up in her New York Times op-ed last week make me flat-out grumpy. Whether or not I'll whittle this one into a full-fledged resolution is a good question; but let me say this much at least: Good for Dorena Williamson. I can't help but believe she's got a point.
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