Not Fade Away - Song Saturday

And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.  ~ ~ Douglas MacArthur

My retirement day from local government service came and went Friday, but I don't know what Douglas MacArthur was thinking about when he addressed Congress and expressed a desire to 'just fade away.'  I wonder if he ever had second thoughts about making that statement.  Just not my vision.

Tim impressed on me the importance of deliberately constructing memories, for at the end that's all we have - memorable life moments with memorable people.  He also taught by example how to face significant endings (he was dying) and mold to the extent possible leaving on self-determined terms.  So, after I processed the word "layoff," then elected to retire from the public sector after 25 years, and consciously worked at rapidly running through the five stages of grief about the loss of my job, I knew I had to deeply consider my last week at work and how I wanted to remember it and, as importantly, how I wanted my colleagues to remember me.

Boomer Retirement Tuesday

Today we held a special lunch for a whole batch of newly minted retirees.  The traditional Chico bbq trailer  for the tri-tip was wheeled in along with barrels for roasting many chickens.  Veggie burgers had been prepared and huge bowls of salad and beans along with grilled garlic bread were spread out in a now vacant section of the building which is now used as a yoga center and workout space during off hours.

It was a perfect late summer day for lounging on the grass, visiting with old friends and contemplating endings.

Budget constraints, groaning workloads...all that was forgotten for a bit as our City family gathered to wish these compadres all the best.   There you would find the police chief, officers and dispatchers, the Mayor and a few Councilmembers, the street crews, the planners, the City Manager and Assistant, the engineers, the finance folk, the attorneys and legal staff, fire personnel, human resources and risk managers, housing and neighborhood services staff, building inspectors, code enforcement officers, the urban forester and park rangers and a few babies and toddlers mingling on the lawn, reminiscing or chasing balloons. 

The visionaries and the pragmatists who populate my work-world.  My second family.

I contented myself with snapping my camera madly and experiencing this day through a focused lens - it seems to help me deal with losses.

These retirees are irreplaceable, although their work remains and will be spread throughout the ranks.  Tough times in the public sector.  The need for public services remains, no matter how thin the staff.

After lunch, I prepared for a City Council meeting that evening.  So it goes.

To my comrades at arms about to embark on the next adventure, here is my video homage and my parting advice:

Happy Trails and Enjoy!

PS - I am so jealous.



The Golden Door

"The New Colossus"

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

                   Emma Lazarus, 1883

Another July 4th, another chance to evaluate the grand experiment, this America of ours.  When Emma Lazarus wrote this poem, the nation was only a few decades from the formal end of the Civil War.  The same war-originating tensions - between states rights and federalism, between property rights and individual rights, betwen the entitled and the disenfranchised , between the educated and the ignorant, between the Northern European settlers and immigrants - were tensions existing since the Founders first wrestled with the question of nation-forming.  Although the Civil War ended, the remnants of confederacy never really disappeared.  Yet, the nation survived and prospered.

These historic tensions are evident today.  The complexity and nuanced compromises of the Founders' positions resulted in a flexible structure which would serve the ages but, by its nature, would also be open to interpretations.  I don't know that the Founders, men educated by the Enlightenment, would be amused by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin simplifying these very nuanced and sophisticated founding documents to support shallow, uninformed and divisive political postures. 

Today's America is fractured, divisive, browning demographically.  It is a nation still wrestling with its founding tensions, a nation struggling to shake off a corporatization that mirrors a monarchy, a nation with growing pains and facing modern challenges to redefine its place in the world.  The neo-confederacy is re-emerging into the sunlight and we dare not squint.  What is at stake is the heart of America, that nation symbolized by the Lady who invites all to reject the old model and walk through the golden door.

Artwork:  LeRoy Neiman