Dear George,
It seems like every ten years or so I run into Arnie Eppo, one of my high school friends who lives in lower Michigan. Arnie’s always curious about my goings on and asks me lots of questions. Here’s a sample of how our conversation goes. (This, of course, is recreated from memory and imagination, so some parts may reflect a real-life conversation more than others.)
Love,
Dave
Arnie (A): So you’ve been retired for quite a while now.
D (Dave): It’s actually been thirteen and a half years. Whew! That’s gone by so quickly. I’m trying to figure out some way of slowing time down.
A: I know the feeling. How has it gone so far?
D: At first I would usually say that I liked working better, mostly because I missed contact with colleagues. But now I find retirement much more relaxing and less stressful. No bosses, no demands, I enjoy lots of freedom and spend my time doing things that give me pleasure.
A: Do you miss teaching?
D (laughs): Actually I never wish that I were back in a classroom. I always found teaching stressful, even though I think I did o.k. at it. Every now and then I walk past my old classroom and feel a momentary pang of nostalgia. But it’s very momentary.
A: I know you’ve also been married over sixty years. That’s pretty amazing.
D: It is amazing. Katja’s really the first girl I ever dated seriously. I knew from the minute I saw her that she was the person I wanted to marry. It was a rocky process though. I was such a shy, introverted kid. Katja’s parents were certain that we would get divorced, and her father told my father that on the night before our wedding. My dad told us in no uncertain terms that nobody in our family had ever been divorced (and that no one ever would). It made a big impression. It probably helps account for why we’ve made it through sixty-two years.
A: You and Katja must share a lot of similarities to have stayed together so long.
D: If anything, it’s probably that old truism that “opposites attract”. Katja’s from Philadelphia; I’m from Menominee. She went to a prestigious big-city college prep school; I went to a small-town public high school. Her parents were staunch Roosevelt Democrats; mine, Eisenhower Republicans. She grew up with classical music; my family listened to big bands and jazz. Katja is very free with money; I’m very stingy. She's very outgoing; I'm very introverted. We did, of course, both go to Antioch College, we agree on most political and social issues, and we were both attracted to academic careers. But basically we’re more different than we are similar.
A: It’s sort of strange that you wound up going to Antioch, such a hotbed left-wing politics.
D: It is strange. My conservative parents picked out Antioch for me based on conversations with an Antioch alumnus who worked at Ansul Chemical Co. in Marinette. But I don’t think they had any idea of the college’s political orientation. The alumnus reassured my mother that that there was a strong Greek system at Antioch (totally untrue) with ballroom dances practically every weekend (equally untrue). Needless to say, my first year at Antioch involved a total culture shock. I think I was probably the only student from the U.P. to ever attend Antioch.
A: Are you glad you went there?
D: Definitely yes. It was an eye-opening experience, and my fellow students were exceptional – intelligent, value-oriented, creative. In many ways the most exceptional people that I’ve met during my life. Antioch, without a doubt, changed my life in important ways and shaped all that was to come, including my marriage, my career, and even our long-time residence in Cincinnati (which I picked in part because of its proximity to Yellow Springs).
A: So you met Katja at Antioch?
D: Yes, I first saw her across the lawn at a freshman mixer, and she was so pretty and gregarious that I decided on the spot that she was the girl I would like to marry. I was much too shy to say hello, but I watched her from a distance for the next year and a half. By chance, I was on my first coop job in Madison, while two of my freshman hallmates and Katja were working at mental hospitals in Milwaukee. I came down for a weekend with my friends, met Katja, and things just developed from there.
A: How did you win her over?
D: I can’t imagine. It’s amazing. Katja was very popular, and she told me at one point that 18 of our college classmates had proposed to her during her freshmen year. Not all of these proposals were serious, but some of them were. On our first date I told her that I’d thought that she was the person I’d like to marry the first time I saw her. Katja got really angry and said that that was the worst line she’d ever heard. I, of course, was completely serious.
A: Then what happened?
D: At the end of our three-months stays in Madison and Milwaukee, I invited Katja to come home to Menominee with me over quarter break, and she accepted. I think she didn’t want to go home to Philadelphia. In any case, she was very taken with my parents and their friends, and they with her. My mother told her that she was the first girl that I had ever brought home. Katja wondered what she’d gotten herself into.
A: How about your son J?
D: He probably thinks we’re sort of a weird couple. Like his mom, J is more gregarious and has better social skills than I do. He likes to travel like Katja does. Temperamentally, he’s may be a little more like me. As a teenager J would sometimes say that he’s a sort of balance between the two of us and that it wasn’t easy for him to integrate these opposite influences.
A: So, unlike your parents, you wound up having just one child.
D: Yes, I think that was mainly Katja’s preference, though I went along with it. J often wishes that he had siblings, although when we asked him as a kid, he wasn’t interested. There were some advantages to having a solo child. In contrast to my own family which was sharply divided into separate parent and child sub-groups, Katja, J, and I operated pretty much as a cohesive threesome, and I think J wound up a lot more mature as a result from all that adult interaction. When J went off to college, he went sort of wild in immersing himself in his peer culture, something he’d never done in the process of growing up in Cincinnati.
A: Now, of course, you’re grandparents.
D: Yes, that’s the biggest life change for us in our older years. Our grandchildren, A and L, are very bright and interesting. They’ll turn fourteen in September, are a lot more mature than we ever were at that age, and are doing very well in school. I’m sorry that they’re so far away in New Orleans, and the pandemic has put a crimp in our traveling. I hope we’ll do more trips during the coming year.
