February 2, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was it Bill P. who said that every important life lesson could be taught from\u00a0The Godfather<\/em>? Bill, now long retired, is still with us, still sharp as a tack. I\u2019m thinking of Bill as I picture the convalescent Don Corleone, rehearsing over and over again the details of the operation ahead of them\u2014or was it the Barzini matter? Obsessively, Don Corleone would repeat the steps, with self-awareness of his preoccupation. He was talking to Michael, who had matters in hand (kinda).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think of the Don, and Bill, as I contemplate my plans and prospects. I keep going over the numbers, the possibilities for retirement, as the idea has loomed up as a salvation of sorts. It still feels too early. Is my main motive that of escape? I know I need a change. I know I\u2019m paralyzed with depression. But yet I function on. There\u2019s a comfort in rehearsing the Barzini … er, retirement, business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woes of SXU: I keep thinking that all these vanities will pass. But they still seem so important. Here I am in a class, with all these young people, and their futures are so important, so full of promise. I need to be the adult and to lead them. But under the weight of my depression, I can\u2019t move well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill P. always brought a smile\u2014he was always on, always performing. His schtick didn\u2019t play well with everyone. My UIC classmate, Mary Kay, was thrown off by Bill’s irreverent demeanor during her interview in 1996, a day or two before my own interview. Maybe something about that interaction got me the job? I too was thrown off by Bill\u2014but his voluble, comic, and I would eventually learn, Italian,<\/em> nature made it easier for me to roll with him. Bill wasn\u2019t, of course, the decision maker in the hiring for the position that I won\u2014but he captured or represented some kind of favor that fell on me then in that life-changing accomplishment of becoming the English Education Coordinator as an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Xavier University. I still can\u2019t believe it, and I still look on that moment as \u2026 what \u2026 a blessing? Curse? Miracle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was lucky in so many ways\u2014to get the local job in a disciplinary area that was my first choice. To have gotten it when I did\u2014with the family I had when I did. To have been able to send three children here\u2014so proudly\u2014when the institution was so worthy, though it did not ever know it, or appreciate it fully enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the twists and turns of the late nineties and early aughts\u2014before tenure, there was such energy, hope, vitality. I could name conferences that were transformational\u2014in Arizona (the Grand Canyon being a big part of that) and Florida (on vacation with the family in Orlando, and my catapult into technology with Nicenet and Web Course in a Box). When Angelo became a student in 2004, everything changed, and the promise he pointed towards\u2014intelligent, moral, carefree, free-spirited and free-wheeling engagement in the world\u2014became an incarnation of what it was all about\u2014the life of the academic, the purpose of education, the purpose of raising a family\u2014the promise of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t necessarily his greatness (though he was great)\u2014he was just the first of the kids to make that transition into adulthood. And he did it in a time when, despite being in the near aftermath of 9-11, was still a time of hope and promise \u2026 and even innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m thinking of retirement \u2026 only because life has gotten so unbearable at SXU. I take that word \u201cunbearable\u201d from my colleague Amanda\u2014who, young as she is, didn\u2019t retire, but moved out of state and into a different teaching career in high school. Such were\/are the conditions of worklife at SXU. Our best and brightest\u2014our future\u2014our most dedicated are made to feel the unbearable, and they leave in search of a better way to work and serve. Her farewell letter was polite and upbeat\u2014no shots fired\u2014and her use of the word \u201cunbearable\u201d was uttered in a more or less matter-of-fact way, but the word now rattles in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of my problem was just how good I had it. When we\u2019re living the dream it\u2019s hard to be aware that it is just a dream, that it all can vanish in the face of oncoming realities. There is some truth to the privilege of being a white guy, an older white guy, a tenured professor white guy. So many of the challenges now swirling about in contemporary society have spotlighted, if not outright critiqued, the accrued benefits of each of those adjectives and nouns\u2014and it\u2019s all justified. But those justifications don\u2019t necessarily rehabilitate the motives or effects of the dismantling of academic mission that our university has suffered since 2015. The victims have been people of all kinds\u2014varied in race, age, and gender. We have all lost\u2014first the faculty, then the students. Our bloated, over-paid, over-self-congratulating administration seems to be the only winner, as we collectively descend into whatever version of us is to settle into place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s always hope that a new order, a new approach to justice can, yet again, put us on a path to a new prosperity, a structure of things that sidesteps some of the old injustices and deficiencies\u2014and builds on new principles of inclusiveness, youthful vigor, and academic promise. But the grief over the things lost will still be there. Today is Groundhog Day\u2014a \u201choliday\u201d that invites a hope for sunnier days sooner rather than later. It\u2019s a day also that has come to mean being trapped in a deficient\u2014but improvable\u2014environment, and one complete with all the resources needed for escape and future happiness. In the mixture of hope and imprisonment endemic to Groundhog Day, I struggle with my depression, and I smile at thoughts of Bill P. and Mary Kay, and I shed a tear for all that is unbearable. I hope to wake up to a better tomorrow; I long for February 3rd<\/sup>, and what might lie beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 2, 2023 Was it Bill P. who said that every important life lesson could be taught from\u00a0The Godfather? Bill, now long retired, is still with us, still sharp as a tack. I\u2019m thinking of Bill as I picture the convalescent Don Corleone, rehearsing over and over again the details of the operation ahead of … Continue reading The Fixations of February 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ang","category-just-life-in-general","category-life-at-sxu","category-ssw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}