School Days, some stuff I've been working on

 I'm having a great semester at Hagerstown Community College.  I'm taking Drawing II and Sculpture I.

This is some of my work:

Calamity Jane, pencil

The Best of Intentions, pencil.

Slava Ukraini, plaster, silk, watercolor.

I continue to have the time of my life.

(retired ranger) Mannie

The Dream Team

 A snowflake on a warming day.

The perfect "work group" is a rare and precious thing...not just people who work well together, but friends who empathize and commiserate with each other, who encourage and console each other, who boost each other to excellence and savor each others successes.

When I worked at The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, I was a part of that type of rare tribe. We were actually friends, rather than merely co-workers, and the sum of us was greater than the parts.

We were the ones who started the Park Service efforts at what was then, the newest of the National Monuments. We invented the idea out of whole cloth...together.

When I retired, I did so in the vacuum of quarantine - all of us were working from our homes and only meeting via zoom. My retirement send-off was done, the only way it could be, remotely on a computer screen. Sadly, there were no opportunities for hugs, handshakes, and private words with these wonderful people.

I planned on going back for a visit after things opened back up and it was safe to travel, but, by then, all of my friends had scattered to the winds of the Park Service, and "The House" is closed for a multi-year renovation.

And that perfect snowflake, just melted away.

We should all be so lucky, in our working lives, to have the opportunity to find such perfection, even if only for a moment.

OMOC (old man on campus)

When I retired from the Park Service (coming up on two years ago) my plan was to take a year to totally goof-off, and then to find some sort of "old-guy retirement job."

I ended up in clover.  I have two student jobs at HCC one in the Student Activities office, and the other at the visitor desk (just like half my time in the NPS).  

Both jobs are easy, fun, and at $12.50 per hour they pay twice as much as my federal pension (which tells you a lot about federal pensions since they did away with Civil Service).

The Student Center is a beautiful building and it is where both of my jobs are.  I'm having a blast.

Retired ranger Mannie.

You never know where the road will lead you

In 1962 my father took my brother and I to Gettysburg.  Living in Michigan, and my parents being of very modest means, this was a major event, and one that I still marvel that my parents were able to pull off. financially.

The trip thrilled me, Gettysburg and the Civil War enthralled me, and I remain keenly interested in the American Civil War.

That trip led in a direct (though dotted) line to the career that I retired from, and the one that I found most worthy. My parents would have been so proud of me.

Take your boys and girls to historic places...

you never know were the road will lead them.

Retired Ranger Mannie

"A new chapter" is a pretty over-used phrase, nonetheless...

One year later...

Gosh...has it been a year already?  

I've been enjoying every (every) moment of this thing called retirement.  I'm healthier, happier, and younger than I was a year ago.  It's been a tonic.

In Fall I start at nearby Hagerstown Community College, to get an associates degree in visual arts.  How 'bout them apples?

Me at HCC

I've always been an artist (even posting some of my work on this blog as the years went by) but an entirely untrained one.  I'm going down this new path because I want the history, the rigor, and the training that a formal, academic, studio and classroom setting can bring.   Plus, I expect it to be really fun.

This is the Kepler Performing and Visual Arts Center; it's one of the newest buildings on campus. This is where I will be spending all of my classroom and studio-time.

I'm immensely looking forward to this experience, and I'm very excited to start on August 15, with Art (appreciation) 101  and Drawing 102.

I'll keep you posted as things develop; until then... 

gaudeamus igitur, baby!

Mannie