Where You Going, Where Have You Been?

The earth is turning away from the sun again: the predawn air is cold and crisp and there's no hiding from it on my motorcycle. It may be hot in the afternoon when I ride home, but the there's no mistaking the light: golden like wine and just as intoxicating. Every morning I debate wearing a jacket for the ride in - it's cold enough to warrant one but I don't want to have to keep up with it, and I certainly don't need it at three thirty when the sun is out and there's no coolness to speak of.

But you can see it on the leaves of certain trees - the sycamores and the sweetgum - that are colored by the cool nights and sunny days. Autumn is coming. Another one.

The other morning, on my way to the office, I stopped by Ms. O's classroom to check on my oldest son's grade. Math is not his best subject and I handpicked my son's schedule, rearranging it, so he could have Ms. O. These are the little perks teachers get - they're not much more than the average parent can pull off if they agitate hard enough, but there it is. Like so much in teaching, the perceived perks are fragile and hollow.

Ms. O told me that my son was doing well. She smiled and said, "I remember you wore that beeper when your wife was pregnant with him so you'd know when she went into labor."

We both laughed at that - beepers for crying out loud! Technology of the past! Once upon a time they were all the rage, now consigned to the dustheap of laughable items like plow-shares and chamber pots.

I hurried on my way back to my classroom, but I thought about that Long Ago when I wore a beeper. The school has been rebuilt and renovated in those seventeen years since he was born, there's almost nothing of the old school left. There was a courtyard behind the school where we would eat a picnic lunch during soccer season when my wife brought him to school because I had a game to coach and couldn't come home. That was right about the time I got a tremendous splinter in my foot due to the substandard wood used by our hack contractor. My son was so upset at the vision of blood soaking the paper-towel that I held to my foot that he couldn't go to school the next day. Those were the sweet pre-school days, long before worrying about math scores and AP classes. He stayed home the next morning, haunted by the vision of his mortal and wounded father. He drew me a picture and hugged me when I came home, and you could see the tear tracks on his cheeks.

That courtyard is gone, and my son will graduate next year. Time rolls on in its relentless way. Every Autumn whispers to me and tells me that the universe turns and turns. I'm not old yet and never will be, not on the inside. But time rolls on.