Being an avid deerstalker, I note that late August is when our whitetail begin transitioning out of their gorgeous fox red summer coat into their dusky brown winter pélage. The lesson: Creatures change with the seasons. Of course, we humans are no different, which is something I see in my own life. For just as students are now returning to university, I chanced upon the featured photograph of my academic regalia, reminding me that I was once a professor. Those days, however, are gone and I no longer think in terms of my former profession or even about it.
Yet the reality is that, from the very beginning, I hated school and it always showed. Exhibit A: View the photo of the collection of report cards from my early days. Although considering Exhibit B, my 1st grade portrait, taken the year Mrs. Miller constantly reprimanded me for general rambunctiousness, perhaps believing I was something that I wasn’t, might the problem have been that teachers misunderstood me and I only reciprocated? Maybe I was too forward-thinking for the educational system or my sense of humor was too well developed.
Hmm, the notion brings to mind John Milton’s Paradise Lost (Now, that’s a wicked thought.). But were my teachers actually complicit? The answer: No, not at all even if demanding and receiving special treatment is now the fashion. A system must be engineered for the 99% rather than the 1% probability. They were just doing their job. Anyhow, I still recoil at coursework, counterfactually speaking.
Interestingly, while math and science teachers later on at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School (Frederick, MD) generally disliked me on account of being disruptive, I got on well with their colleagues in the humanities (Although Mme Wilson, you gave Étienne too much credit.). But life is paradoxical. I had a head for math and science. Thus, I subsequently trained as a chemist.
One thing led to the other, though. I stayed in the game as a student and earned the coveted PhD. Yet when I was one semester away from defending, my advisor’s funding was cut and I adapted by teaching an advanced undergraduate chemistry course and a physics lab to augment my income. And that generated an epiphany. Despite intending to enter industry, I proved to be a natural in the classroom, my advisor commenting that I injected energy into the subject matter (Take that, Mrs. Miller!), and consequently opted for an academic career instead.
Then three years along, I adopted my signature style of teaching chemistry in the context of a larger theme or idea. View Exhibits C and D and you’ll see what I mean. Additionally, examine Exhibit E, a draft outline of a theme I was developing as late as January 2020. While this one was only in the trial stage when I retired, I think I was on to something truly novel.
Retrospectively, though, I should have opted for mechanical engineering and industry. The basis: Mechanical engineers design firearms, fly-rods, flight systems, fast cars, etc. In sum, they concern themselves with many of the best things in life. Even so, it’s really a moot point. For some odd reason, I cramp miserably throughout my upper torso when engaged in desk work, especially when it entails using devices such as a computer. And most engineers these days spend a lot of time doing exactly that. But upper torso cramping is much the reason why leaving the chemistry lab (Laboratory life damaged my upper respiratory track.) meant leaving the profession altogether.
Okay, some people are cut out for sedentary living while others for activity, and I’m counted among the latter. In fact, just writing this silly post has left my traps in knots. There is, however, a singular non-pharmaceutical remedy that I’ve found to be effective, and that is to drape a heating pad over my shoulders while plugging away at desk work. Although it’s a seasonal solution at best. Between mid-April and late September, the weather’s generally too warm for it. The implication, of course, is that if I write something lengthy and involved between tax day (a sore subject) and the Autumnal Equinox, then it’s only because I believe it to be supremely important and thus worth a little suffering.
Very well, in Churchill terms, I was more a buttress of the educational system than a pillar.1 And therefore predictably, I am far more in my element as owner-operator of Voyageurs Fieldsport, living by my wits the way a hunter always does, than I ever was in academia. Yet, know that when I commit to something, never lacking intensity, I do so wholeheartedly. Sometimes it’s as if I could drive my head through a brick wall to obtain that which I desire. But I digress. The point is that the subject matter at hand has shifted from chemistry to fly-fishing and deerstalking – really to a way of life that truly aligns with my charism – and the World is not enough.2
- “I could hardly be called a pillar of the Church,” Winston Churchill once famously remarked, “I am more in the nature of a buttress, for I support it from the outside.” https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-163/churchill-proceedings-winston-churchill-and-religion-a-comfortable-relationship-with-the-almighty/ ↩︎
- Orbis Non Sufficit: The history of the motto transcends James Bond. It first saw the light of day in the epic poem Pharsalia by Lucan, was later the motto of Philip II of Spain, and later still the motto of Sir Thomas Bond, 1st Baronet (1620 – 1685) – the real life individual who Ian Fleming attached his fictional James Bond to as lineal descendent. ↩︎