I am two years retired from a position as a professor of sociology. When I shared with colleagues that I was retiring, they said, “Well, gosh, you so deserve it. You’ve worked hard all your life. It is time to take some time for yourself.” Or, “Now you can sleep in and do nothing all day if that’s what you want. Have lunch with your friends. Play golf.” But I heard, “Ah, now you are done with working. You can be put out to pasture, set aside your skills, and console yourself with the idea that your time is past and it’s up to others to take up the torch and fight the good fight.”  When in fact, I already felt put out to pasture in my old job. I had been domesticated with my talents managed and confined. Leaving that position was actually liberating, an opportunity to expand my talents, learn new skills, embark on a new adventure, and see what emerged. I wasn’t worried that I didn’t have a plan or a book club or a hobby or a house in Florida where I could retire and join other retirees. I wanted to forge my own path after leaving what had been a twenty-year career in higher education. 

Summer 2021, me modeling an apron from Frog & Toad from the Hope Springs Back box

I came to the realization just a few months after retiring, that I wasn’t retired at all, I was repurposing myself. Not everyone needs to do this. I am casting no judgements here. Everyone does retirement in their own way. I am simply explaining here my own repurposing journey; maybe it will resonate with others. I retired from the university a few months after my 70^th birthday and launched a small business later that year. Now, on most counts, a 70-year-old retired sociology professor really has no business launching a small business or a big business for that matter. It is a stretch goal, as they say. However, I was aching for an opportunity to see if all my frustrated creativity and energy to do something good for the world could be translated into a real live enterprise. Could I move from teaching and scholarship to really getting something done, something that would bring real value to a community that I love? 

A short history of Giving Beyond the Box

When I was a faculty member, I would host, with the help of some activated students, holiday pop-up markets that featured local social enterprises, i.e., small businesses or nonprofits with products that supported social missions such as refugee employment and retraining, empowering women, supports after school arts program for under-resourced communities and more. Our last market showcased eighteen vendors and sold nearly $8000 worth of merchandise in four hours. We took the market to the cafeteria of a Fortune 500 company the following day and did just as well. My takeaways from these markets were that people would be willing and happy to purchase an item that did good, if this was convenient, if the story behind the product was compelling, and they were especially likely to do for gift-giving occasions. Building a bridge between these organizations and conscious consumers was the challenge I decided to explore. As Seth Godin writes in new book, The Practice, part of a journey like this is to, “To find the contribution we’re capable of.”

Moving out of my old faculty role

Learning new skills. As I developed this idea, I relied on my friends and others who became friends. When I decided to curate gift boxes that would feature items from organizations with inspiring social missions, I began my building a few of the boxes, meeting with people I knew and many I didn’t to get their feedback. This was new territory for me. Prior to this adventure, I would have never introduced an idea unless I had already figured it all out. But in this case, I had so much to learn. Exploring this put me on a path of researching a fascinating topic. And it all required, tapping into people’s expertise and viewpoints. Was this a good idea? Who would buy this? What values could the box celebrate? And more. The effect of this was that at the end of the process, I had spoken with more than seventy people and had a much better idea then than I had when I set out.  I became more excited and more passionate about making this idea work, of bringing it to market.  In November 2019, I launched Giving Beyond the Box: Gifts that Do Good. Nearly two years into this experiment, we have partnered with over fifty vendors, created more than ten boxes and sold almost one thousand of these curated gifts.  That passion flowered into something real that gave to the community. And as Godin puts it, “our passion is simply the work we’ve trusted ourselves to do.”

Learning to seek help and hope. Another challenge was developing a new network of colleagues and friends for mutual support and encouragement. I have never in my long career as a public servant, as a professor, as a researcher ever made such extensive use of networking. I know have the widest, more diverse community of my professional life. This has been a blessing and something I have carefully cultivated. As a classic introvert, I relied on my ability to make one-on-one connections, to take genuine interest in the work of others.  I have also relied on incubators and accelerators, to develop my ideas, and often have been the oldest and dumbest person in my room. I have had to move out of my former “expert” role as a faculty member, recognizing that unless I learned about marketing, distribution, value propositions, inventory control, project management, and more I would never make this business a reality.  Luckily, one of the characteristics of the social enterprise community at least where I live in Rhode Island, is a system mutual support and an eagerness to help each other succeed. It is more like Dolphin Tank, than Shark Tank. 

A few final words. Repurposing, as I am using it here, puts on a road when we can refashion ourselves, if we choose to. We can have an idea, build it into a dream, take on some new skills, and then see where it takes us. One of the biggest joys of this adventure was being able to support many young entrepreneurs by buying their products and featuring their work in our boxes.  Telling the story of these social entrepreneurs and the work they do has been great medicine for me during these COVID times.  I think our customers appreciate that as well. Being able to explore avenues that were unknown or unavailable before, because of work or family obligations, is a great gift of aging and retirement, or better put, repurposing. 

Prior to the May 1^st deadline, I filed Petition A-3456, a form to be utilized for reappointments, transfers and readjustments. According to contractual language, evidence in support of petitions must be submitted within two weeks of the filing deadline. Ergo, my evidentiary argument will proceed here, prepared in the requisite typeface and font with the approved margins. 

Background

Approximately, sixty years ago, I received appointment to the Bluebirds, somewhat by accident, I feel, in the cold light of retrospection. In early September of 1956, Sister Juliana wrote the word “mosquito” on the board and asked us young scholars if anyone knew this word. My little hand shot up, eager and confident. It happened that earlier that summer that I had read the very well-reviewed Bobbsey Twins at the Seashorewhere the word mosquito appears at a pivotal point in the narrative arc. In all the reading I had done to date (approximately eleven months’ worth), no word had ever stumped me. I spent an unproductive ten minutes trying to sound out the word but I couldn’t get it. I had to ask my mother who seemed very surprised that a rising second-grader couldn’t figure this out on her own. In any case, “mosquito” was mine, a word I have never forgotten. Neither did my mother ever let me forget or forgive me this silly question.

When my hand went up in recognition, I had no idea of the consequences. This singular answer placed me immediately in the Bluebird reading group with all the attendant privileges and responsibilities afforded the top reading group in the second grade. Just below the Bluebirds were the squirrels, the second rank readers. And, at the bottom of our little hierarchy were the Gophers. The nuns explained to us that the Bluebirds got more schoolwork to do because we could do more work. If we couldn’t keep up with our group, accommodations could be made, measures would be taken.  We could be moved to, don’t say it, a slower group.

There is never anything subtle about messages to second graders and I worked very hard to remain a Bluebird and vied, I must admit with some embarrassment, to be the biggest little Bluebird. Bluebirds sometimes helped the teacher, got sent on errands, and were asked to present at assemblies. Bluebirds after all were pretty and cute. (Well, no so much for me; I earned my place through auspicious summer reading.) Squirrels were rodents, after all, and gophers, well, really they lived under the ground and weren’t very well coordinated.

By accident of the Bluebird start in life, I took an average intelligence and parlayed into a pretty good class rank. Supported by a few underserving scholarships, my long career that has taken me to many places that I hadn’t wanted to go but all in all, I have been a hard worker and more than earned by reputation not because of talent but because my fear of falling behind my peers. The Bluebird classification served me and my employers very well.  Sociologists write about the looking glass self and the self-fulfilling prophecy and I am smart enough to understand that my success in life has been built on luck and chance at every turn of events. 

So, it is with a sense of sadness and resignation that I am finally recognizing that my Bluebird time has come and gone. I used to be a good Bluebird but now is the time to move to a slower group. Other Bluebirds will be happy to pick up the slack. As a lifelong Bluebird, I know their behavior and their habitat. They are happy to pick up the slack and eager to see if they can do the work better than other Bluebirds. 

There are many fine people who are Squirrels. Actually, they are nicer than Bluebirds and know that talent doesn’t always rise to the top. And, as experience has shown, Gophers enjoy life more than the rest of us; they can be happy and fall asleep anywhere. In the long run, the talent, suffering and achievements of the Bluebirds, Squirrels and Gopher are pretty much the same. As a no-more-Bluebird, I expect to have more time for other pursuits. Proof to support my leaving my former identity can be found in my unanswered emails, my unfriended Facebook contacts, and my unwritten tweets.  Evidence can be also located in my zoned out responses in meetings and in my undecipherable notes taken during conferences. Finally, my enrollment in the Coursera course, Life After the Bluebirds: The Promise of a Squirrel Lifestyle, serves as the strongest testimony that it is time for me to go.  I am willing to accept the consequences of my transfer and understand there is no going back.

Respectfully submitted

Sandra Enos

Bluebird Class of 1956-2019

The New York Times recently invited its readers to share their life lessons with this season’s college graduates. I have posted my responses and am sharing these here. The writing prompts are in italics

Have you learned a life lesson that you think could help others? Was there a choice you made that you are grateful for, or any regrets you have? Share your story here.

I am just turning 70 years old and retiring from a twenty-year career as a sociology professor. I earned a PhD when I was nearly fifty years old after a long career in child welfare, corrections, nonprofit management, higher education reform, policy aide to the Governor of Rhode Island, factory work, VISTA service in Alabama as a construction worker,  savings bonds processor for the federal government, conflict mediator and short order cook and waitress. In none of these jobs was I following my passion. That never occurred to me. Instead I fit the circumstances called for because people I encountered recognized in me a talent or strength, I didn’t know I had. I took opportunities that came up because they paid the rent or because they seemed interesting or because someone asked me to take a position. I learned a lot about myself and my ability to work in lots of different situations. I was put in situations that were uncomfortable, where I saw abuse of power and corruption and where I saw immense courage and sacrifice on the part of my colleagues. As I look at these jobs, I can’t say that I ever wasted time in any of them, or that I should have always been a college professor much earlier in my career. I don’t believe in “callings” really or in being trained particularly for a job. Even if you are deeply trained in a profession like medicine, law, or sociology or in a craft like carpenter, that says little about the sort of doctor or lawyer or professor or skilled craftsperson you will be. It is what we make of the work before that makes all the difference. I have been blessed with opportunities where I had a chance to create or to advocate for those with less or be kind and open to those who just needed a good cup of coffee and a warm smile.

What would tell a young person just making their way in the world?

After counseling thousands of students over my career as both an adjunct professor and a full time academic, I offer advice that runs contrary to conventional wisdom. I urge them NOT to create a life plan, NOT to think of their education as just another set of hoops to jump through on their way to a high paying job, NOT to think of liberal arts as something to avoid or diminish and NOT to pursue their passions. There are no straight lines to that perfect life because your understanding of yourself, your loved ones, the larger world, why you are here changes as you grow older and encounter the world. To me, a greatest gift we give ourselves is to life with a purpose, connecting and seeking things well outside your comfort level. The deepest learning happens when we are uncomfortable, at a loss, when we see ourselves, our strengths and our weaknesses through a different lens.

I would also counsel them NOT to delay caring about the world and its challenges. Every day in every action we take we either make the world a better place or we don’t. Understanding this reality takes a lot of work and it forces us to move beyond our baked-in inclination to think of ourselves and our needs first. I would also urge them to carefully consider and calibrate all the time and energy individuals and institutions have invested in them to date. The earlier they recognize the contributions of those around them to their success, the better off they will be and we will be as a larger community. It takes the unusual young person in our individualistic culture to make this a practice.

Launching in today’s environment is a lonely thing, despite all the digital connectivity. You need to find your people and your community. In the long run, nothing will really matter except making connections with people who you cherish for who you are and who you will become. It is an immense challenge for any young person not to be whipsawed by the false promises of celebrity and instant fame and fortune. Always think carefully about what you have made your “God” and how that object of worship and obedience forms who you are as a person and everything you do as an individual.

Meditation begins with great intentions and dreams but can end poorly. Of course, such is the path to wisdom, self-knowledge and about one of the marriages in the U.S. Even with a great meditation app and outfitted with a perfect set of Lulu lemon yoga pants, things can go wrong quickly. Those distractions as we breathe, those pop-up thought bubbles, those nagging urges to think about something, anything else. All to much to handle with grace.

I try to remain calm, gently returning to focus on my breath. Ah—inhale to a count of four— pause to a count of five- — exhale for a count of six. I know the drill. However, it seems no matter how hard I practice, these fleeting thoughts enter, ready to party when I am planning for a quiet evening at home, in my head anyway. So, after many failed attempts at kindly asking my attention to return to my breath I decided to try something new. I had politely asked by thoughts to wait their turn in line and to advance when called upon. I was thwarted n that plan when my thoughts simply jumped ahead, like an eager two-year old pushing himself ahead for a piece of candy. So, I began to abandon the reasoned mature approach and took up a more aggressive posture.

Inhale. Pause. Exhale. I move through several cycles. Good for me. And then a nagging thought emerges, provoked by the smell of burning rubber from the garage.

“Something is burning”, the voice says.

Using a steady and forceful inner voice, I reply, “ Can’t be. Shut up.”

That seems to quiet that voice. I return to my pleasant cycle of breath. But soon another distraction pops up, this prompted by a bee sting on my left hand.

“Ow. That hurt” the voice complains.

I nearly shout internally, “You are such a complainer, Shad up in there!”

That quiets things for a while. I complete nearly two minutes of silence and nearly trance-like meditation, (12 cycles of breathing over a two-minute time frame—an all-time best for me, even if am not really counting). Soon, I am interrupted by a squeezing feeling in my chest, a tightening in my throat and a sense that my face is swelling up. The voice clears her throat to get my attention. This time I really let that inner voice have it.

“For mercy’s sakes. We’re trying to meditate in here. Please be quiet!”

And to my great surprise, I hear,

“No. You shut the heck up.” Undaunted, I reply strongly, albeit with bated breath, “No! You shut up right now.”

That inner voice responds,

“And just who’s going to stop me?” in a very challenging tone. It continued,

“Not you. If you haven’t noticed, your heart beat is zooming up. You’re sweating. Your adrenaline is soaring. Your so-called meditative breath is beating away double-time. You are actually in shock from that bee sting. And if its escaped your attention, the fire department arrived five minutes ago. They are putting out a fire in your garage. I am urging you to calm down. Stop meditating immediately and get to the hospital.”

That inner voice sounded so kind and tender that I listened. It could have been that higher power that I was trying to reach through all this meditation. II took another deep breath, maybe my last, and called 9-1-1-. Lucky for me, I had practiced meditative techniques being on hold for the cable company for hours at a time.

Nearing seventy years old, I’m having more and more conversations with my friends and family members who complain about a lot of things—health, money, caretaking, their children, other drivers, the erosion of manners. I won’t go on. Recently I have heard plenty of sentiments along these lines.

“Oh, my God! I am so looking just like my mother.” It should be noted that this statement is never expressed as a one of relief or accomplishment; it is definitely something else.

So when someone says that they look like they are on their way to looking just like their mother, I think, “Well, who else would you look like as you age?”

When I asked a friend of mine that question, she said, “Well, I don’t know. Joan Baez? Gloria Steinem? Dr. Phil says we always have choices.” I think, in this very small matter, Dr. Phil may be wrong.

I mean, really. Is this not a crazy thing to say? Isn’t this like saying, “I seem to be getting older as I age. What’s up with that?”

If we didn’t look like our mothers did at our age, wouldn’t we be sending a cheek-swab to 23 and Me or other DNA profiling agency to ascertain our heritage. Wouldn’t we be cooking up schemes to remember the name of the milkman, find his children and sneak a cheek-swab from them, as well?

I may be too harsh here. I am a Baby Boomer and I know how youth obsessed we are. Research shows that our self-perceived age is about thirteen years younger than our chronological age. When we don’t recognize ourselves in the mirror is not the mirror’s fault; it is our fault. We are in denial. This younger age, what researchers call “felt age” or “subjective age denial”, is not confined to the elderly. In our celebrity enchanted, youth-adoring, appearance-envying culture, even the relatively young perceive themselves 15% younger than their chronological age.

So it may be that my friends are not so much complaining about aging like their mothers as dealing with changing perceptions of themselves. They are crossing thresholds their younger selves couldn’t imagine. Is there a generation that has sought and followed more advice about aging? We have turned natural and normal aging into a giant industry that has neither the science nor the moral standing to guide us our way. Charles Revson made this point clearly when he wrote that the beauty industry doesn’t sell cosmetics; they sell dreams. The same can be argued for the whole enterprise of preserving our youthful hair, bodies, resting heart rates, and cognitive power. This is not an argument for maintaining wellness as long as we can but we may be pushing the envelope and the envelope is pushing back.

This looking more like my own mother gives me pause. I should have been kinder to her when she was aging. I should have made less fun of her jiggling upper arms and confusion about technology. I should have understood her reluctance to go the beach and her eagerness to cover up an aging body—vanity aside. I should have listened when she complained about falling hair and the aggravating noise levels in restaurants. It is hard to come to terms with my younger ageist self. I bet my Mom never said, “Oh my gosh, I am becoming as clueless as my daughter.” I do have regrets here–that I wasn’t more patient and kind. That I didn’t have enough moral imagination to consider myself being in her shoes. And now that I am I can take some pride in thanking her for this long-lasting curly hair, my increasing reluctance to go to parties, my inability to get too riled up about anything, and the greater frequency of people thinking I am a little old lady with a wicked sense of humor. We are so cute, after all, as were our mothers.

It is not a far stretch to imagine that professors are the targets of the interference from foreign powers. Every time, I teach about the French revolution, I worry that some Frenchman will take offense at my PowerPoint and attempt some sabotage. And when I teach about China and free speech, I worry that my bus trip on one of those $1 passages between New York and Washington, D.C. will be cancelled. It is not beyond belief that foreign powers can review our lectures notes and our curriculum strewn all over Blackboard and other “learning management sites”. Given the openness of these files, much mischief will ensue and, actually, is already underway.

Case A

In the spring semester of 2018, I am fairly certain that four undercover agents were planted in my classes trained to destroy my teaching mojo, undermine my professor authority and drive me to seek other employment. I am fairly certain they were foreign agents by their excellent verbal and written skills, certainly better than the students I typically find in my classes. They were also better read than most students and knew a curiously prodigious amount about U.S. politics and civics. In response to a proposal from a what I took to be an American national student that voters should take an IQ test and a quiz about current events before being allowed to vote, a student that I suspect was a Russian plant raised her hand and asked if she might weigh in on this question. She then traced the jurisprudence of U.S. enfranchisement law, related the history of Jim Crow literacy tests in the south and asserted the disallowance of any pre-qualifications for voting as established by the Constitution and a series of court rulings. I must admit the undercover student did a good job outlining these issues for the rest of the class. She was, however, a bit arrogant and suggested that instead of make voting easier for ignorant Americans, we should only have one candidate run for each office. This would greatly simplify having to be informed about the positions of each candidate on major issues. When I saw several students nodding in agreement, I changed the subject. Definitely subversive.

Case B

At the end of that semester, I had a long series of negotiations with a student who could hardly go a day without sending along several email inquiries about topics we had just discussed in class. The student insisted at every turn that all of this was news to him. He stipulated that information stated in the syllabus simply wasn’t there. When I disputed this by reading from the syllabus, he simply stated, “Well, professor, no disrespect intended but there are at least two ways to look at this issue. I simply don’t agree.” This was reminiscent of the movie Gaslight when Charles Boyer tries to drive Ingrid Bergman crazy by suggesting that she is losing her mind. The aim of this scheme was to have her institutionalized so that he could continue his criminal activity—looking for the jewels he was after when he murdered her aunt. While I don’t think the student had that intention, claiming that words on paper didn’t exist was dissimulation of the sort prized by the KGB. These series of exchanges culminated in a conversation where the student contended he shouldn’t have to write the final essay because I knew him well enough to give him an A. When I countered that this wasn’t the way I did things, he suggested something about my adopting a more innovative approach to teaching. I may have heard him whisper something about “draining the swamp” under his breath but I didn’t pursue that line of conversation. No question an oppositional agent attempting to challenge the core principles of intellectual engagement at the university level. No doubt part of a large scale conspiracy which is evident if you ask any faculty colleagues about whether this experience sounds familiar.

Case C

As everyone knows, an important part of espionage is the falsification and trading of important documents. Just this semester, an agent pretending to be an American lacrosse player attempted to pass along false documents in my sociology class. I must confess that the disguise was masterful. The student was approximately six feet tall, with a chiseled chin, deep blue eyes and a blond sweep to his hair, sort of like James Dean if he played sports (which seems out of the question to me). When this student came to class, he always brought his lacrosse stick to better cement the disguise I suppose because none of the assignments in this Crime & Justice class required the use of a lacrosse stick, tennis racket or swimming goggles, for that matter. (Although with the growing power of college sports, this may be the newest innovation in our classrooms. This would save the athletes a lot of practice time and not make their studies such a distraction.)

It was clear that the student’s attention was elsewhere. On several occasions, I found him checking out websites during class. When I asked him about this, he answered that this was part of a “special assignment” for another class, which was much more important than what he was doing for my class. Well, I am no fool; I can decode what “special assignment” means. I have seen plenty of James Bond movies: I know the language from Mission Impossible. At the end of the semester, this embedded agent handed in a paper prepared by another agent. I was alerted about the plagiarism because I had assigned the topics two years ago. To me, the false document handed in by the student was equivalent to trying to pass off an outdated passport from a country that no longer exists. When confronted about the fraudulent use of a term paper, the student simply claimed diplomatic immunity. I countered, of course, citing Chapter 243 from the Geneva Convention, which states that professors can fail foreign agents. He suggested that this could lead to a serious break in our relationship, which I said I would welcome. To violate the norm of intellectual property and academic which each American student prizes so highly was a clear indication that this student was yet another foreign agent dedicated to throwing a monkey wrench into the social order. As noted above, faculty members at other institutions may have also noted this practice. The challenge here, of course, is not just to identify these foreign agents and call them out. What about the influence of these insidious practices on our own students? Such is the danger of Russian interference.

Case D

It was this final case that made me leave my teaching career and seek employment as a barista. As a long-time professor (almost twenty years), I have survived many potentially challenging situations by skillfully combining flexibility and empathy with students while enforcing standards about what should be learned and how that would be demonstrated in the classroom. To my credit, I have had few complaints about my performance overall and receive better than average teaching evaluations from the thousands of students I have taught. This semester, one of the Russian trolls met with my supervisor to file a complaint about my assignments in class. Despite clear instructions, the student seemed to be unable to understand my directions about projects and deadlines. Perhaps, to be fair, the student wasn’t a native speaker and there could have been translation issues. However, the point of the “faculty development” conversation with my supervisor was that the students were paying a lot of money for their educations and we wanted them to be happy. This undercover agent who met with my superior suggested that he wasn’t happy enough and I needed to address that. I laid out a plan and tried to assure the authorities that all was well enough. I promised more happiness and less teaching and that seemed to cool their interests in reprogramming me. The idea that education is about delivering a consumable product and that students should be satisfied customers and eager-beaver workers instead of educated citizens is stunning. It is certainly an affront to the core American ideals of educating young people for active participation in a democracy. If the Russian strategy here is to turn our youth away from citizenship and toward consumerism, I couldn’t imagine a more dangerous trend. This is the sort of poisonous ideas that these Russians are spreading. Can you imagine these implications?

Given these serious hacks, I will demand an investigation to get to the bottom of this breech of security. I would like to avoid a reoccurrence of this next semester. I am also convinced that I am not the only one being messed with like this. There could be collusion here. Of course, this malicious behavior and pernicious intent could also be coming from a party other than the Russians. But, whoever it is, let’s posit that these are the enemies of higher education and of the nation, as well. And they are no friend of mine.