"Rolling Down the Avenue to My Early Retirement"

It's official. Although I've been fighting off encroaching fine lines for several years now, and although I've been crochety for far longer than that, I've always maintained I'm still "young" (or, more recently, "young-ish").

But now, the sham has been revealed. Undeniably, I is old.

I know this for sure because, just the other day, I found myself kvetching about "kids these days" and how they have "no respect." I believe I even shook my fist at the heavens.

In short, at some point when my jowls were sinking deep into a hand of pinochle, and I asked Edna to pass me another one of those hard candies I keep in the jar in my living room ("in case the boys come 'round"), my spirit donned a pair of black knee socks and sandals and went out to mow the lawn. My chi became geriatric.

What caused my sudden heaval into John McCain's peer group? Students, of course. Or, as we call them at The Home: them bratty ingrates who wouldn't know proper treatment of their elders if it whupped them upside the head.

Case in point:

For the last few years, I've taken it upon myself to create a publication for my college's English department. The point of this publication is to celebrate student writing--to gather together a representative sampling of the best student work from the year and, after editing it so that it's actually readable, putting it out in paper (and, this year, blog) editions, with the sum effect being, "Look, random readers: some of our students are able to write in complete sentences!" What's more, some of them do it with style and intelligence.

So I spend each academic year urging my colleagues to gather the best of their students' writing (with their signed consent) and submit it to me; at the end of the academic year, when I lay breathless and heaving from grading and reading and administering final exams for my own students, I gather a small committee to read all the submissions and select the best of the pretty-good. We end up with about 150 pages of text, which I then, to signal the start of my "summer vacation," edit and format. This takes me weeks. I am a sucka that way. Eventually, I send the final proof to the print shop, where we run a couple hundred copies; this year, I also put together a blog site of this publication.

The whole point is to honor students' efforts, right? That's what my youthful spirit used to tell me.

This summer, though.

Well.

There's this student--not one of mine. I've never seen or met her. It can stay that way. Chosen for inclusion in the final publication, her essay was written in our department's advanced composition class, which is generally devoted to the finer points of research writing and citation style. However, some instructors also include other modes of essays, in this case a personal interview. So this student--let's call her Krusty--wrote up a report of an interview she did. It was an interesting read, on a topic that tapped into a modern-day issue of widespread importance. For the purposes of this post, let's pretend that issue is Prejudice Against Clowns and that she interviewed someone with a bulbous red nose, in full make-up (not Amy Winehouse, interestingly enough).

For me, her essay was simply one of 30 that made the cut...until the trickle of emails began, picked up here midstream:


From: >>> "Krusty" 06/06/08 8:05 AM >>>
is the student web publication out yet?


From: Jocelyn [mailto:happy jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Fri 6/6/2008 9:25 PM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission

Yes. I sent out the link to the entire campus (students, employees,
and faculty) a few days ago. Here it is again:

http://neveragain.ingratitudetaxesmylastnerve.edu

Congrats!

jocelyn
________________________________

From: >>> "Krusty" 06/08/08 6:30 PM >>>
why was the title of my paper changed


From: Jocelyn [mailto: slightly-bewildered jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Sun 6/8/2008 9:03 PM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission


Okay, I just looked at your paper again to see what you meant. Yea, we added the colon plus the words "An Interview" because it was the only submission from Comp II that wasn't a research paper, and readers of the Comp II work would be expecting a research paper, so to avoid their confusion, we clarified with stating it was an interview. Basically, your paper was different from the others in that section,and we wanted people to know that; that's why the title now reads "Sending in the Clowns: An Interview" instead of "Sending in the Clowns."

jocelyn

________________________________

From: >>> "Krusty" 06/13/08 9:21 AM >>>
well i really dont like the title... can you change it to "sending in the clowns" an interview by Krusty ?


From: Jocelyn [mailto: just here to accommodate you jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Fri 6/13/2008 2:24 PM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission

I can change it on the blog, but it's too late on the paper copy, which has already gone to the printers.

--------------------------
From: >>> "Krusty" 06/14/08 7:45 AM >>>
i am very angry that the title was changed without my consent


From: Jocelyn [mailto: are we serious here? jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Sat 6/14/2008 10:22 PM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission


We were simply trying to honor you with including your work. Editorial changes are part of any publication. I already changed the title to what you suggested (which, basically, consisted of getting rid of a colon and hitting return) on the blog; I'll be glad to take your paper off the site entirely, if that makes you feel better. It's too late on the print copies, but if the title is too distressing, you have the choice of not sharing the paper publication with people you know, at least.

Having two clarifying words added to an essay seems to be overwhelming any good feelings you might have about this honor. I'm very sorry such a small thing has become the focus of your thoughts; I hope at some point you can appreciate that your work was even selected.

jocelyn

________________________________

From: >>> "Krusty" 06/20/08 9:08 AM >>>

You are a very rude woman. And yes, the title does bother me because the title i gave my work had meaning. and it is too bad that you cant take feelings into consideration without writing an insulting letter. I am not stupid and i do understand why you changed it. But there was a better way to have done it and kept more of the original title. But i suppose i can not expect someone who doesnt deal with being a clown to understand how much the title means to myself and others to have.


From: Jocelyn [mailto: it's all I can do to keep from throttling you jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Fri 6/20/2008 11:11 AM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission

Krusty, I'm extremely confused. Extremely. I just reread what I wrote and can't see what's striking you as rude there. I was serious--not sarcastic--about being willing to remove the paper from the site, if it's distressing you. I also was serious that I'm very, very sorry you're not feeling honored or getting enjoyment out of your paper being selected.

Tone very often gets lost in email, as yours have felt quite aggressive and overly-strong to me, but I've been trying to read them as though you're simply trying communicate your feelings and not attack someone who was putting together a project intended to promote and celebrate
student work. That I've become a lightning rod for your reaction continues to surprise me.

As a sidenote, since you don't know me, it is presumptuous for you to assume you know anything about what clown training I might have participated in or have undergone in my life, by the way. And I don't mean for that to sound rude but rather corrective of an overstepping of bounds.

As I step back and try to review your concerns objectively, I find myself still stymied as to why you feel the title change impacted its effect. Your paper was titled by you as "Sending in the Clowns." The title in the publication was "Sending in the Clowns: An Interview." I guess where we're butting opinions is that I just don't see--nor does anyone I've asked during this exchange of emails--how adding "An Interview" compromises the meaning or impact of the title. And after you expressed your unhappiness with that title, I changed it immediately on the Web site so that it reads "Sending in the Clowns" An Interview by Krusty. I did what you had asked, yet you're even more angry.

I can own the fact that I did something that made you angry. But you're the one who's in charge of her own reactions beyond that. Truly, I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm also really trying not to let your reaction take over something that was meant very innocently and that I've rectified to the best of my ability.

jocelyn

________________________________
From: >>> "Krusty" 06/21/08 7:47 AM >>>
the paper is a profile... not an interview.


From: Jocelyn [mailto: I can't tell you how done I am here jocelyn@faculty.edu]
Sent: Fri 6/21/2008 2:34 PM
To: Krusty
Subject: RE: Essay Submission


Oh. I asked your instructor, before putting together the publication, what genre the paper should be labeled, and she said it was "an interview." I'll change it on the Website, if you want, to "a profile."

Hugs--
jocelyn

________________________________

That has been the last I've heard of her ('til she stumbles across this post, and I'm forced to hire Kevin Costner to be My Bodyguard). I'm choosing to take her radio silence as a sign that she ultimately was awed and amazed by my continued calmness in the face of her obsessive and over-zealous pursuit of this issue. At this moment, she is doubtlessly holed up in a wood-paneled basement, below Mom and Dad's den, scribbling furiously in her journal about the deep regret and shame she feels for the way she dared to communicate with a perfect stranger, one who is, even more, instructor at the college she attends.

Yea. That's the ticket. She's terribly sorry that she turned me into an aged harpie who goes around croaking about "those bobby soxers and their dangerous long-haired music."

Were hers the only example, I could put the story to bed and muse on it there, as I rub Ben-Gay into my aching joints. But the truth is, she's one of many. College teachers are regularly receiving inappropriate communication like this...all...the...I-spent-how-many-years-in-graduate-school-and-now-put-in-50-hours-a-week-holding-nervous-hands-and-being-supportive-of-students-who-complain-when-they-receive-a-9/10-on-an-assignment-just-to-have-you-crap-on-me-like-this? time.

Fortunately, 84% of the other students redeem the lot and give me faith that there's something to this slagging away in the Inspiring Minds Mines. However, when it's 2 a.m., and I'm up leafing through my albums of WWII (the good old days), I start to think

that

early retirement can never be overrated.

There's a bit of a rub, of course, since I'm our household's breadwinner. Someone needs to eat the sh** so we can eat the bacon, right?

Behold this joyful noise, though:

Inspired by my grumblings about ruff-necked performers who cram into VW's and have Internet access, Groom has determined to up his unicycle training and infiltrate the circus...







...where he will not only earn us a glittery paycheck,

but where

he'll also be perfectly positioned

to

roll some serious treadmarks onto the clowns.