To some, retirement sounds ominous. When I retired as a high school history teacher, I wondered what that meant. So I went to the dictionary. Retirement said, “see withdrawal.” I looked up withdrawal. It said, “coitus interruptus.” I looked up coitus, it said, “see inconceivable union.” I sought help from the teachers’ union and I was told I should retire because it would improve the system. #I retired and learned the following:
Teachers who retire lose their principals.
Principals who retire lose their faculties.
Superintendents who retire no longer play Board games.
Board attorneys who retire walk around without their briefs.
Gym teachers who retire no longer score.
Librarians who retire soon become shelved.
Nurses who retire lose their patience.
Physics teachers who retire lose their energy and nothing matters.
Math teachers who retire lose their functions.
Chemistry teachers who retire are out of their elements.
Music teachers who retire no longer make amorous overtures.
Drama teachers who retire can’t find their character.
Language teachers who retire regard the future as tense.
Latin teachers who retire stubbornly continue to decline.
Photography teachers who retire lose their focus.
Art teachers who retire even in good times still go baroque.
#History teachers who retire also suffer. Walking down Nassau Street, I once heard a person say, “Look, there goes Roufberg. See, he has no class.”
Roufberg retired as chairman of Social Studies at Princeton High School. He says, “PHS began in 1929 during the Depression and is still a great school in 2009 during this Depression.”
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