Prologue:
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For the first time since I was 5 years old I am leaving school without the intention to return in the fall. Retired. I have been trying to reach some semblance of completion to the job I have been doing for the last seven years of my 33-year career, Science Department Head. Purchase orders for next September are processed. Furniture is moved and supplies stowed. The phone rings incessantly. Teachers "check out" for the summer. It is frenetic. It is joyous. It is bittersweet. My goal is finish up in time to see the sunset tonight from our retirement ‘nest’ on the Cape. My goal is in jeopardy. But, this day is hard to rush. Goodbyes are a bit longer than usual and some threaten to produce that singularly human secretion - a tear. The press to complete the "to do" list makes the time fly but endangers the "sunset imperative". My good friend Tom sits with me awhile. He asks if I am experiencing some nostalgia - any reflection. "Too busy to even think about it. Maybe it will hit me in a day or two", I speculate. Susan stands in the doorway after saying goodbye for about the third time. She too is leaving the school for good, this time to take a job out of state. Susan was to be the new DH. Her fire for leading the Framingham High School science department were doused by her husband's job relocation to New Jersey. "You can't leave can you?” I ask. She just looks over at me from the doorway - eyes filling. The damn phone rings. I won't answer.
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Finally, loaded up and checked out, it is time to hit the road. THere are just a few errands to run along the way out. Traffic is typical for Downtown Framingham - stopped dead. But, the nice thing about traffic is that it forces "time" on you – time to think. Not going anywhere anyhow. Framingham is our town. We lived here twice. When we were first married and started out family. We had an apartment about two blocks from where our daughter Carrie lives now. Our first jobs were in the typically blue collar industries -paper mill and auto assembly, both in Framingham. Most recently we downsized to a small "starter" home five minutes from our jobs. I know this town. I drive by two of the banks in town. Nancy worked for both. Both are closed now. I like to tease her about being the "black widow spider" of banking. Every bank she worked for either closes or is bought out. She is retiring too. Could the banking industry be as happy about her retirement as she is? That auto parts shop won't have what I need. I'll try the one downtown. Take the cut-off around the traffic by going down past the park. I used to bring the kids here. I go through the defunct Dennison buildings where Nancy had a job while she was pregnant with Pam. I wonder if we will ever find a recycler as convenient as “Bottle Bill’s”. Two girls wrapped up in World Cup fever and Brazilian flags skip by. The downtown used to be Italian, then black, then Puerto Rican and now Brazilian. It changed but it is still the same. I know this town.
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"Entering Town of Holliston” the road sign reports. We had two homes here also. I see several people from the back that I think I recognize, but it was really the way they looked 15 years ago. I don't know anybody here anymore. There is often a speed trap along here - at least there was. Norman’s restaurant is gone. Lex's Auto Parts is gone too. They still haven't fixed this road. Oh, fixed and fell apart again. It has been awhile, but I know this town. Last stop is Medfield. My pickup truck passes over the Charles River at the spot I took the kids canoeing. Years earlier my good friends and co-workers, Frank, Silvia, and I, cruised this stretch of the river as we put together an interdisciplinary unit for our classes. I wonder if I will miss that creative side to my job. Mom still lives in the same house she and Dad bought when they moved here in '66. Dad died 23 years ago and she has lived alone since. Mom, at 78, has had her usual amazingly busy day; tennis, exercises, cleaning up the yard and now she is off to play bridge. The yard looks like a Better Homes & Gardens cover. The bushes, long trampled during the driveway basketball games of her 5 sons, have recovered. The only sign of those years of Sunday afternoon games is a bald B-ball up on the shelf, saved for no apparent reason. Mom casually passes along a check for $1000 - distributing her "wealth" with a gift to each of her children. Living the good life has not warded off the relentless fragility of age. I'm fixing Mom's bird feeder for her. It is, of course, missing a part. Down to the basement workshop I go muttering something about Murphy's Law and fumbling for the light switches. The switches are Dad's "Rube Goldberg" creations and are not in the typical places but I reach for them with the unerring memory of my youth. I quickly find the part I need. My eyes roam over the pile of junk tools and parts that Mom holds onto for no good reason. A hand carved wooden sign is archived behind some tools – a practice project on scrap wood. "Ed Daniels", it reads. Dad's name. My name. My son's name. I find myself taking inventory of the thousands of "object d' yard sale" that Dad stowed into dozens of tiny drawers. How many years of scavenging went into this collection? The leftovers of countless odd jobs and unfinished projects had joined the long list of unfinished business Dad left when he died too young.
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A life never finished. His retirement never started. "55 and out' was his motto. It was just a little too final in his case. I resolve that it will have a different meaning for me. I have more than one retirement to live out. Driving out of Medfield I pass the cemetery in which Dad and Grandma Osborne are buried. It occurs to me that my trip to view my first retirement sunset on Cape Cod will also take me through Bellingham, our first home, where our first two children were born. I have just traveled into and out of each of the towns we’ve lived. Larry's, the sleepy little variety / package store at Rt. 126 and Rt.495 has been joined by two huge malls, along with traffic and neon and asphalt. The 45-minute commute to Framingham would take twice as long now. I used to make that trip on my '73 Suzuki, even in the winter, to save money on gas. The Arab oil embargo forced prices to leap to an unimaginable 65 cents a gallon. I pass by Frank's old street. My friend was to retire at 58 and never got to see a day of it. Another good man died too young. I have more than one retirement to live out. I set the cruise control at 75 mph. Now I am perfectly willing to spend $1.39 for the gas and use a little extra of it to speed my heavily loaded pickup to our retirement home. One hour until sunset and almost two hours to go to my destination. It's clear I would not be seeing sunset from our beach, but I could make the bridge at the canal by that time and at least see the sunset from a vantage point of Cape Cod. The Bourne Bridge a long double arched suspension bridge of 1930’s vintage is just ahead. Tonight it is washed in the yellow glow of the lowering sun. Turning east on the canal road the last rays of the sun glint through the bridge into the rear view mirror. I consider looking for a pullout to stop and view the sun as it sets on all my old jobs and homes and life back to on the mainland. But I don't stop. This day, it seems more appropriate to see the sun set in the rear view mirror. The End |
