Getting out of the pool, slowly

For the most part the ample response to my "Intelligent Design" essays was affirmative and civil; but there were enough examples of what former President Bill Bowen once called his "full moon mail" to encourage me to seek respite in a topic of less than cosmic significance. That would be my impending retirement.

Among my favorite examples of "noir" (i.e., "slightly twisted") French wit is an observation sometimes made about would-be suicides: "Maleureusement, pour être mort, il faut mourir". Those who want or think they want to be dead must face the unfortunate truth that in order to be dead one must first die. While no very exact analogy presents itself, I do glimpse a similar truth about retirement as I approach the end of my last semester of full-time teaching. Retirement as a sort of indefinite state of radical liberty to cultivate one's garden and to roam at will through library stacks still unexplored is, of course, a vision of bliss. Retirement as an actual succession of ritual acts involving teaching the last preceptorial ever and having to worry about emptying my McCosh office of sixty or seventy cubic yards of stuff is something else again.

As a regular matutinal swimmer I have observed that there are, broadly speaking, two distinct modes of approaching a chilly pool. Many, maybe even most folks seem to pussyfoot around a bit, first dipping a toe in, then sitting for a protracted period on the pool ledge with legs immersed while they mull things over in a leisurely manner. Others simply take the plunge. I am in the latter group and always have been. Hence it was somewhat uncharacteristic of me to opt for the University's two-year "phased retirement" program.

This is a contractural deal whereby the University pays me a carefully measured two-thirds of my regular salary in exchange for a rather roughly estimated half of my regular work. The institutional gain that justifies such generosity is my signature on a legal document guaranteeing that I will go away at the end of the period. The University has been scrupulous in honoring half of this contract. At no point during this period have they paid me more than two-thirds of my regular salary. I have to report a little slippage on the "halftime work," though.

The surprising feature of the situation is that a final year turns out to be not so very different from any other year. While I didn't exactly expect the veil of the temple to be rent in anticipation of my departure, I have been surprised that I am so far unable to detect even a hairline crack in the foundations of Nassau Hall. Indeed, not only does the institution show every sign of an impudent aspiration to continued existence, it seems to be teeming with vitality as it scans a horizon against which one can discern rising a four-year college system, a vital Program in the Arts, and God knows what else. That's "God" in the metaphorical sense, naturally, as in Dei sub numine viget.

Still, other signs have not been entirely lacking. There is an episode in "All Quiet on the Western Front" in which a bedridden soldier only fully realizes that he has just had his leg amputated when one of his comrades, ostensibly paying him a cheering visit in his hospital room, asks him if he can have his leather boots. Office space is at a premium in McCosh, and it has long been a significant marker in a successful professorial career to be able to move up and out of the labyrinthine catacombs, which bring to mind a set for a submarine movie, and into the world of daylight. Perched atop the fourth stairwell, I am not merely in the realm of natural light—I'm in the moral equivalent of the Eighth Sphere. Why, on a clear day you can see the Frist Center! Hence I have found myself nervously bemused by the marked increase in the tempo of friendly visits from my junior colleagues. Finally, after 40 years, people are coming to office hours. John V. Fleming is the Louis W. Fairchild '24 professor of English. He can be reached at jfleming@princeton.edu. His column appears on Mondays.