This is the third electronic–and perhaps the 33rd mental–draft of this I’ve attempted. You see, December 5th, 2023, marks my 40th anniversary in this profession in one way or another. I’ve been trying to figure out what to say, and how to say it to mark the occasion. knowing full that that nothing is required or expected; and in fact, “nothing” may be preferable at times like this.

I know why I want to say something: To express profound, overwhelming gratitude to the people who have helped me along the way. Most of them, unfortunately, don’t know they helped me, and for that, I’m sorry. Others, I’ve told, but I doubt they really understand the depth of their imprint on my psyche and my life.

And I also want to marvel–really marvel–that I ended up here at all. We know there are few people who work in higher education who were first-generation college students. I suspect there are hardly any who are first-generation high school students like I was. Me being here was a long shot, to say the least, even before you consider that I’m overwhelmingly introverted, but started in and came through a profession that is–or at least was back in 1983–almost tailor-made for extroverts.

So for once, writing is a struggle. Not much makes sense.

In that regard, I’m reminded of TS Eliot’s East Coker, a poem I’ve read countless times and have not yet exhausted. His reference to

“Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings,”

and recognizing that

Twenty years largely wasted….
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.…..
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. …..
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

So for me, there is only the trying. The rest is not my business.

In my previous drafts, I’ve come at this from many angles: Trying to document my path here (too long, too maudlin, too boring, and mostly, too unbelievable); or reliving the many times fate has smiled on me, putting me on earth at perhaps the best time to be born, and putting me with people–literally countless people–who have offered me advice, or helped me and taught me things and ways of thinking and ways of viewing the world I never could have imagined. I’ve tried to make a list. It won’t work.

The very act of writing drafts has only served to reinforce for me that the serendipity and lucky breaks in my life could fill volumes, rather than a blog post.

It seems that too often in my life, the very thing I needed at the very moment I needed it had been provided to me just in the nick of time by someone who probably had no idea how valuable their counsel or advice or example would be. Or, maybe they did. Others taught me things that took a while to sink in, but then suddenly appeared years later. The good examples and the bad examples: I’d like to think I learned from both.

So Lou Gehrig was wrong: I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

In that regard, I think of this line from “It’s a Wonderful Life” backwards: Not in the sense of what might be if I hadn’t been around, but what might have been if any one of them hadn’t been around. My life would be different, and, I imagine, not nearly as rich or as fulfilling. Each tiny piece of the puzzle is vital, playing a part that is only noticed when it’s absent.

In my beginning is my end.

“Thank you” is hardly sufficient a phrase, I think. But it will have to do.