A Road Not Taken by GJ

Yes, it's the title of a famous poem by Robert Frost...who, by the way, was called "America's Poet Laureate" by President John F. Kennedy.

It was 1957 and I was at my life's "low," I think. If it hadn't been for two, bright and cheerful and darling daughters plus a bright and cheerful and darling wife, I would have been depressed. Their gifts (of support) kept me from thinking about lows much at all. I had resigned from my third teaching job in a fit of vanity, which is a long story in itself.

The first thing I did was send out resumes for a new teaching position. I got a call from Sterling, Illinois, and went for an interview. The good news was that the opening was for speech, English, and drama (director.) I had been waiting for the theatre opportunity for five years. The bad news was that the "stage" was set into one wall of the gymnasium! (This means the seats are folding chairs, and rehearsals would take second place to sports.) I thought the interview went well and relaxed a little and waited for the contract.

Several weeks went by and no such mail. It was getting extremely close to Labor Day (school opening) and I figured that I had been wrong and that they had found someone else. I had even started looking for other work and decided to apply for a job as personnel manager at a "sash and door works." I got a call that said I could start the day after Labor Day, and I was relieved that at least it was a job, and one that paid more than teaching. On the Friday before the holiday, I got a call from Sterling. "Where have you been," the superintendent asked? "What do you mean," I asked? "School starts Tuesday," he said. "But I didn't get a contract, " I said. It seems that his secretary forgot to mail it! (Or, he forgot to tell her, maybe.)

I couldn't very well renege on the factory job, so I told him I was sorry, but it was too late. The
personnel job lasted about four months. (Another long story!) I was to try running a diner, fail, and began to think it was an even "lower low." But Jean and the girls took it in stride, so how could I not do likewise? (Jean got a job and so, for a while, I was a "house-husband." The girls wanted nothing but fried-egg sandwiches and to watch "My Little Margie" on TV.) (My secret recipe, now revealed for the first time, was to add a dash of oregano.)

A new round of job-searching led to landing a fine job in Charleston, Illinois as speech, English, and drama director in a university town. This move enabled me to get an M.S. and Jean to get her B.A., which, in turn led us, three years later, to triple our income with a move to Chicago suburbs. That move made our whole retirement a lot better. If that contract had arrived on time, and if I hadn't agreed to the factory job, we might have been "frozen" into the Sterling job. I say frozen, because after a couple of years, it would have been nearly impossible for me to get another job in teaching. (By about one's eighth year or so, schools feel that you are too expensive to hire.) Jean would not have gone to college, most probably, and teaching would have lost a fine educator. To quote Mr. Frost, "Two roads diverged in a wood , and I ---/ I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference."