May 5, 2024 Stroking my ego

I’m reading a very depressing book, “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri. This is pretty much the opposite of who I am because, if anything, I tend towards the overly optimistic. In addition, this book of short stories is mostly about Indians from Southeast Asia who are living in Great Britain or America. I have no reason to be drawn to them at all. Ms. Lahiri, however, won a Pulitzer for this book and she’s doing an excellent job of breaking my heart at the sorrows of people who are being let down or abused by their circumstances and life. Sigh.

When I’m not reading, which I really only do while I eat lunch, I’m getting ready to leave for the summer. This is an exercise I have done for many, many years, since at least 1997, so I’m pretty well practiced. Yet, I seem to enjoy making tweaks and additions to it every year.

This year appears to be the year of removing. I retired nine years ago and three years ago I began to seriously work on taking off excess weight, and this was before Ozempic – which I’d love to take, but that’s a different memoir altogether. Anyway, I had kept my entire professional wardrobe thinking I could take in the clothes that were getting too big. Or, based on prior weight-loss episodes, there was a better than 50/50 chance I’d gain all the weight back and then some. But when I sat down at the sewing machine one day with a blouse, I realized I couldn’t just put in some darts. There was so much excess fabric I’d need to take the entire blouse apart. I’m certainly not willing to do that.

So I started looking at the clothes in the closet with a much more critical eye. Just exactly when will I be needing executive style clothing again? I’d already taken in the waistband of some of the slacks, using them as gardening clothes. The oldest of the blouses were likewise in use as weeding and pruning ensembles. I don’t think the blazers and Ralph Lauren blouses have a role in my life anymore.

In the meantime, I discovered thrift store shopping. I’m a pretty frugal person to begin with and usually refuse to pay more than I think an item is worth. One day, simply by chance, I walked into a place called Orphans Rock in Mt. Dora, it’s associated with the First Baptist Church of Umatilla. The cashier was calling out, “We have so much inventory, that everything is half price”. Five pieces of clothing, a set of 4 drinking glasses and a little coffee carafe later I left, three dollars and fifty cents poorer. Ralph Lauren be damned! The clothes in the closet were folded up, bagged and taken to the thrift shop. So that’s that.

Back to lunch and depression. Now I’m cleaning in the dining room where yesterday I removed from a small chest I keep there, a thick three-ring binder once again from my previous career slash life. It had many, many clear plastic pockets that were filled with notes and cards. I knew I could use two of them to hold the Friends of the Library Scholarship Award certificates I’d printed. I was still suffering from the heartlessness in the book of Dev who had married Twinkle four months previously, but didn’t like the fact that she wanted to keep all the Christian things she kept finding in the house they’d just bought. I started removing from the clear plastic pockets all the notes from students, the required faculty photographs I had to have taken yearly, and the certificates, meaning to throw everything away.

Well, maybe not the award from the University of Miami for outstanding counseling. And here was the thank you note from Natalie, who was the reason I got that recognition. She was certainly a bright young woman, her mother was undocumented, father was who-knows-where, and her mother told her to never, never, never tell anyone that she had had tuberculosis. I’m only telling you. The University of Miami was the perfect school for her, the exception being she had absolutely no money to attend. 

What to do? The George Jenkins Scholarship, of course. George Jenkins? Name doesn’t ring a bell? You ever hear of Publix supermarkets? He’s the founder. And the scholarship his foundation awards is a full-ride including everything: tuition, fees, books, supplies, room and board and a stipend. I made sure that both Natalie and I knew every inch of that scholarship and everything written about it and previous winners. I wrote her letter of recommendation and edited and helped her polish her application until it was shiny and bright. And I made myself even more known to UM’s Admission’s and Financial Aid offices. My alma mater, after all. I knew she had a solid chance, but a chance isn’t a guarantee. So when I got the call from UM saying she had won, I cried, Natalie cried, even Wally, the Guidance Director cried. It was a good day. Can’t throw that away.

So I didn’t throw away the quite unflattering pictures of a much younger, much heavier me. And I kept all the cards and notes. Someday I’ll decide I no longer want or need this ego stroking, “What would we have done without you Ms. Roher”, “You worked harder than we did”, “You’re the best counselor I could ever imagine”. But this memoir will remain online on my blog and I’m going to include a piece one of the student’s wrote for English class, because it’s clever and funny and says a lot of truth about who I was and what I did. They must have been studying Chaucer and this is a parody.

Paul Chestnut 

Professor Thompson 

ENL 2012

February 25, 2010

The Intruder to Chaucer’s Pilgrimage 

And on the pilgrimage there was a BRACE Advisor.

She knows what’s best because she is wiser.

“Good afternoon, I am Mrs. Roher,

Your email account will believe it’s in the First World War. 

My daily emails will make you insane,

Just remember they are for financial gain.”

She hides in a cubicle at her desk.

Her love of scholarships can be seen as grotesque. 

Every year she gives away millions of dollars,

Attempting to help a community of scholars.

Her office is adorned with cute, little knick-knacks,

Here she hides, sending silent internet attacks.