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April 27, 2005
Although I love to get holiday letters - the ones for twenty recipients - I have never written one. This occasion more or less demands it. I am feeling especially self-conscious, however, since my current bedtime book is Speak Memory, and it seems presumptuous to write sentences under the long stylistic shadow of Vladimir Nabokov.
Very suddenly, two years earlier than I expected, I found that I could retire at sixty-three, and I will do that,. officially on May 25. The causes are a generous early retirement policy from the University of Minesota - although the dollars and cents make generosity sensible from the perspective of the U accountants - and a legacy from my mother, who died, last August at 89.
Another impetus was the progress of the building of our house four miles from St. Martinville, Louisiana, where Jeanne (known as Jibby by everyone close to her) grew up, and where we have dozens of relatives, including a batch of nieces and nephews ranging from three months to forty years, those between three and ten (eight of them) especially adept conversationalists and bon vivants. House-building, when you are 1400 miles from the site, is not something I'd recommend. In October, the builder was promising completion by Christmas, and that egged me on the retirement. Of course, Christmas turned into February 1, then April 15, and now May 1. The latest word is that's when it will be. The kitchen countertops went on yesterday.
We came to Morris and the University of Minnesota in 1972. Except for sabbaticals and leaves, I have taught full .time ever since. About twenty years ago, Jibby began teaching freshman writing and grammar as a temporary instructor and six years ago started teaching women's studies. She was one of the pioneers of the major in that field. I have taught most of the courses a small college can offer in English literature. Until this semester, I would have named eighteenthcentury as an exception, but I am finishing up with a survey that includes the "long eighteenth." So only medieval remains to do, and that, unless something very strange indeed transpires, will never be.
I have enjoyed teaching, and I have been rewarded for it with two...