Things DO change... time DOES pass

I thought of a professor of mine in graduate school. He spent time with his students up at his house in the mountains north of Missoula. I was welcome there on several occasions. I remember staying the night once. So rustic - a saucepan full of water on the wood stove to humidify the cabin, small windows letting in little bits of night, trees as logs, trees as fuel, trees living and breathing and standing so tall all around outside.

I googled his name, and followed the link to the University of Montana Philosophy department page. I'm looking at the Faculty page, and every single one of the six professors listed as Emeritus were active faculty when I started graduate school in 1989. 25 years ago come September.

In that 25 years I've gotten seventeen years of a career in IT, raised my daughter, divorced from my wife of 23 years, and bought a house just recently. But no graduate degree. And not necessarily in that order.

My inspiration to study the history and philosophy of science was Owen Barfield. The occasion to consider and apply to graduate school was a layoff from teaching high school science. By the time of the layoff, I was thoroughly in love with science, the history of science, the philosophy of science, and of course teaching.

Teaching satisfied me in so many ways, and gave me so many opportunities to grow and learn. I studied more the first semester of teaching than all four years of college combined. Always talking and thinking about experiments, tests, labs, lectures. Taking students to UT to hear a scientist lecture. Inviting students out to look at the stars and use my telescope to view the moon and planets. Constructing a box viewer for students to watch the solar eclipse. Having the Physics students (all three of them) over to the house to eat pizza and watch Koyannisquatsi. Listening to a student explain to me her experimental design, her hypothesis, demonstrating her methods, and arguing her conclusions. Reading, reading, reading, and more reading.

A year passed between teaching and graduate school, a year filled with amazing things. Things like writing a letter to the editor of a trade journal, and having him call me on the phone to discuss my point of view. Having lunch with two fellow teachers who tried to explain to me the background and context of Owen Barfield's book Saving the Appearances. Sitting in a dark, cramped University office of a professor who knew of and had corresponded with Owen Barfield. Writing to, and hearing back from, Owen Barfield himself.

That really does seem like ages ago. I do feel tired, remembering the energy I had, expending it on so much thinking and talking and reading and writing. Then those slowed up, stopped up, dried up, withered away with inattention, deliberate repression, mental and emotional crisis.

But I'm alive, and have my wits, and can see very well with my progressive lenses, and will be reading and talking and writing to the end, I hope. To the very end. And then after that, just thinking like never before.