All Good Things

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

This spring has been a bittersweet time for me. Some things are changing in my life; most are for the better, but they are still changing, and what’s so great about change? My grandkids seem to be doing strange and foreign things lately; things like graduating from high school and even college, way too soon. In fact, I just watched our granddaughter Sofi get her diploma from her school in Florida only a few minutes ago.  She was a baby only days ago, it seems. Talk about bittersweet.

One of our grandkids got married last year, another will in just a few weeks from now. Those things are all great blessings to our family, I know. Kids do grow up, and doing so successfully is a wonderful thing. Still, most of the grandkids don’t come to Grampy and Grammy’s for holidays anymore. Feeling sorry for me yet?

My career is about over too. In June I will retire, for the second time, from teaching high school English at Websterville Christian Academy; (a school I personally recommend highly). Every teacher everywhere must admit to looking forward to summer as much as the students do. Still, when it is your last year to do so, well, there’s that old bittersweet again.

Last week I gave my students one of their final English assignments for the year. Monday was an especially gorgeous day, so we went outside with notebooks and pens. I told them to separate, to go someplace alone to think, and to write. The assignment was to author a five-stanza poem about some aspects of the natural beauty around them. Easy, right? This is Vermont in springtime, after all. They were instructed to not just ‘be’ outside, but to observe at first the macro world. They could write about anything in that part of 0*creation, the blue sky, the green trees, images in the fluffy white clouds. But I also asked them to look down, to see the micro world, to observe the blades of grass at their feet as the mighty sequoias that they are to the tiny creatures that make their homes in the little shards of shade they provide.

I asked these teenagers, whose generation is widely thought of as an uncaring, media-obsessed, self-centered lot, to give me their written thoughts about all this. What I later received was a stack of well-written, thoughtful, and observant poetry that showed true appreciation of the immense complexities and beauty of the world we live in. I believe that this exercise was good for them; I know it was good for my faith in them.

So, all good things… the saying goes, ‘must come to an end.’ There’s that bittersweet feeling again.  I believe now more than ever that all truly good things are right here before us, if we just take the time to see them. It’s something I learned recently, from a bunch of teenagers.

Number 780

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

It was mid-May. The year was 1994, and yours truly, somehow, a few weeks prior to that time, had screwed up his courage enough to ask his friend Gary Hass, the co-publisher of The World, for permission to write a column for the paper. Gary was, and is, a brave man, and didn’t hesitate to say ‘yes’ to my request. (I hope it was not a decision he has regretted.)

That day, all those years ago, I remember telling Gary that I wanted to write about the ‘times’ of life; you know, the simple events of living that we all share and cherish here in our great state of Vermont.

So, my humble column space, right here, every other week (and a page or two after the obits,) has been about family experiences, friends, foibles, and feelings that you and I have in common, even if we have never met. I hope you have enjoyed my take on experiencing the many passing seasons and years during my time with The World. It has been good for my soul to remind myself and others of the many blessings of life, to bring to people’s minds the scents and sights of candle-lit pumpkins at Halloween, of evergreens and frosty scenes at Christmastime, of the sights and sounds of the seashore and sandcastle building with my kids and grandkids those many summers.

Gary’s unhesitating word of permission that first day launched my undeserved entrance into the world of writing for newspapers and magazines, of publishing novels, and eventually of teaching a generation of high school students to love English and the written word. I hope Gary knows how much that all has meant to me, and how much a simple ‘yes’ can have the power to change someone’s life.

So, here I am, here we are, at what I believe is attempt number seven hundred and eighty in my quest to entertain and inform Vermonters and others about the fun and fantastic things that life brings, sometimes through the very minutia of it. That means this edition represents my 30^th anniversary occupying this space.

Writing for The World has always been my therapy. I have learned to appreciate life and love here and have benefited from the experience far more than my readers have. This paper has been a true home for my many meandering thoughts and words, and I thank you for reading them.

I want to thank Gary Hass, my friend and publisher, for this amazing opportunity. I do wonder a bit what the next thirty years will bring.