“What do you do with all your time?” they ask, as if somebody gave me some extra, like a bonus spin on the Price is Right. I know what they mean when they ask, though, and while my insides are always smirking, I hope my mouth isn’t as well. What the curious really want to know is, “Now that you have retired, how do you spend your days?” (And yes, I’m not a fan of the word “retired”, though it does by definition mean “to leave one’s job”.) I have all kinds of answers to the question—however it comes out--in a can inside my mind. And all of them are true. But time isn’t really the prize you get when you jump off the hamster wheel. Though everybody thinks it is.

…Something happens to a man when a baby comes along. Something happens to everyone remotely connected to the baby when a baby comes along, but the shift that occurs in a dad is palpable. It’s like his skin turns inside out. The tough stuff is still there, it’s just way more concentrated in certain areas and way less all inclusive. Suddenly, there are fissures where things can travel in and out.  

I was walking out of the alcove where all the teacher mailboxes were housed at Norman High School when I heard the news. I had just picked up the attendance sheets from my box and was headed hurriedly through the lounge back to my lair in the north gym when a couple of sports junkie teachers who were posted up during their planning period listening to local talk radio shared the news.

“Hey, did you hear that OU is dropping women’s basketball?” they said.

“What? What are you talking about?” I asked.

(The final in the series of three for those walking to “Pomp and Circumstance” this spring…)

I heard a story when I was little. I’m not sure if it was from a preacher in the pulpit or a teacher in a classroom or my Granny while we were hanging the laundry on the line, but it stuck, and I remember it sometimes, usually right after I’m smugly disappointed in whatever I have found.