Looking ahead - a note to an aging friend

Thanksgiving is a time when memories of my father are particularly vivid. Until two years ago, I would drive up to his small apartment in an assisted living facility and then we would drive back to my weekend home in the country for the holiday. Though I don’t much enjoy driving in heavy holiday traffic, we always enjoyed these - and other - long drives together. The other day I received a brief email from a man who became my father’s closest friend in his last four or five years. (One thing about very old age I came to realize, is that all of your lifelong friends have died). When I visited, the three of us would always take lunch together. Fred lived an active life and was a senior business executive whose passion was glider piloting. Now he is mostly confined to a self-powered wheel chair. He said that he missed our lunches together and hoped I would stop by. My response, a bit of a personal update and reflection, follows. Writing to him lead me to think about what my own retirement projects might be.

Dear Fred,

It was good to hear from you and I will share your message with Kaitland, Amanda and Jeffrey. If I am driving up to see Kaitland, I will certainly plan to stop by. Unfortunately, I have not come that way recently. On the first of July, I stepped down as Director of American University's Academic IT organization, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and began a one year sabbatical. I traveled both in Europe and in Asia, visiting Belgium, Hungary, Sri Lanka and Singapore. In the Spring, I will be a visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, before I return to full-time teaching and research in the Fall. Were I to stop by the Cumberland dining room, I could show you my new electronic device, an iPhone. Probably one or more of your children and grandchildren have one of these and you should get them to help you check it out. I have also been taking my studies of Buddhism more seriously (Since Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation, this has been one of my priorities for many years as an academic subject.) You might enjoy reading the Dhammapada, which was one of Buddha's early teachings. I am not looking forward to retirement, but one thing I will look forward to is more time to devote to Buddhist studies. I am thinking of learning Pali, which is the language in which Buddha preached and in which his many preachings were first transcribed.

Retirement is not here yet, however, and so I must get back to my 'to do' list, which includes, first of all, scrubbing my kitchen floor. Last night, I served standing rib roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to 39 hungry students and things are now a bit of a mess. According to Buddha, scrubbing floors can be viewed as simply another form of spiritual practice.

Do continue to write, from time to time, and keep me up to date on your interests and projects. If I fall down as a correspondent, you can always catch up with me on my blog,

Dormgrandpop.blogspot.com or on my Facebook site, AU Dormgrandpop. Incidentally, if you are not on Facebook, I recommend it as a good way to keep up with family and friends.

Thanks again for writing.

Dormgrandpop