But there are beginnings and A Beginning

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Last night, my partner Rebecca turned on the big attic fan. It produced a deep humming, white noise, perfect for sleep. In the 1950s, my parents put a large fan in my bedroom before they bought the first air conditioner. It made the same sound. I still recall my father coming into the room early to turn the fan switch from high to low — a soft hum that eased us to morning.

So I woke this morning refreshed and thinking about beginnings — and A Beginning.

Beginnings

I’ve always loved beginnings.

Maybe it’s because I’m firstborn. I was there at the start of my parents’ family. I absorbed the specialness of it all. Everything was new, possible, waiting to be experienced.

Seventy-three years later, I arrive at basketball games early to watch warmups. Can I pick out the starters for the visiting teams? How do the coaches interact with their players? Does one group have more energy than the other?

An exciting part of the six Bob Dylan concerts I’ve attended is watching the crew set up the stage after the warm-up act departs.

Every instrument is placed in a precise place. Because Dylan is famous for changing playlists, I delight in watching the same ponytailed guy replace one piece of paper with another on whatever surface will be closest to Bob. When all seems ready, the crowd quiets. Waiting. Even the memories give me chills.

Rebecca and I attended a Marine retirement ceremony two weeks ago at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia. Rebecca’s son-in-law, Colonel Jason Schmidt, was retiring. I took this photo a minute before the ceremony commenced.

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A setup crew of young soldiers had placed all 50 state flags on their bases. The tallest made sure the crescent tops were positioned correctly. One top kept sagging, and he kept tightening until it finally obeyed.

About 15 minutes before the start of the ceremony, a Marine quartet played eclectic music. Every musician acted with fidelity as if her task was the most important in the world. And the perfect beginning to Colonel Schmidt’s final salute as an active duty Marine.

I took the opening photo the Sunday before this year’s Winneshiek County Fair. I love fair time. We live four blocks from the grounds. The streets are bursting with energy. Tattooed carnies walk by our house. Groups of teenagers stroll past in the early evening.

We are bikers, and The Decorah Trout Run Bike Trail borders the grounds. We watch the farm kids, and their parents bring animals into the buildings the week before the fair.

However, I don’t visit the swine barn because what I most look forward to when seeing the fair is this:

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A Beginning

As I’ve gone through life, I’ve learned that there are beginnings and then Beginnings.

I will co-teach a Life Long Learning seminar on Death and Dying this fall. This will be my 51st year of teaching. I retired from 36 years on a college campus in 2018. But my first teaching job was with 44 sixth graders in 1972. I had extended my college deferment one year to get a teaching certificate to stay out of the Vietnam War draft. By then, the need for inductees had abated to put me out of harm’s way.

So I’ve always thought I became a teacher out of circumstance. Without a low draft number, I would have done something else. I never felt I was natural-born.

And then, last Sunday, my sister-in-law Linda showed me this photo at a family gathering.

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That’s me on the left, with my little brother Peter. When Rebecca saw this photo, she said, “I’ve seen this teaching gesture by one of your hands many times.”

Here it is in a Life Long Learning seminar I taught in the fall of 2022.

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And again, one year earlier, from our apartment in Timișoara, Romania, when I was teaching an online course to Romanian students.

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A New Beginning

There’s no date on that photo of me and Peter. I’m guessing 1955 when I’m six, and Peter is four. We grew up in an era when children were seen and not heard. Who knows what that gesture of mine meant? Or who it was directed at? Maybe my left thumb hurt.

But here’s the thing. I’ve always felt comfortable in front of a group of students. Something was there from the beginning. I didn’t see it.

A talent I thought I had created out of whole cloth was, instead, uncovered.

What difference does this make?

Confidence.

I was not a good student until I was 27 and in graduate school. Most of my colleague teachers were always among the best.

I felt like I didn’t quite belong for half a century.

I might have begun an alternative story if I had seen this photo 50 years ago and taken more chances throughout my career. Less tentative, more decisive.

I eventually became a confident teacher. But I felt I had to outwork everyone else. There’s nothing wrong with this.

Except it builds a habit of defensiveness.

I’m now trying to break with the help of that confident, youthful gesture.

Another Beginning.