How I Became a Prince
But I didn’t know. I gave very little consideration to what I would do with an English degree. I don’t think it was ever a consideration. You see, I was in the last generation who perceived a college education to be a ticket to being conceived as a person of value. It seems like a quaint thought now. A couple of years in the service as an enlisted man and twenty-five years of teaching high school English in a small town, and ten years of working as a librarian, the value in my mind of being a college graduate was somewhat diminished.
Upon my and my wife Linda’s retirement from our jobs in education, I was left with the feeling, “That was interesting, but not altogether satisfying.” It certainly was not the life of a prince.
When I received my first retirement check, I thought to myself, “That’s more like it.” I could stay up as late each night as I wanted to and get up in the morning at my leisure and still receive a check in the mail each month.
Being that I’ve always liked to work, as I approached retirement, I knew it would be wise to find something to do to keep myself occupied. Linda definitely thought it was a good idea. I set about attempting to increase my artistic skills which were…well, nil. I painted almost three hundred paintings of cats in an effort to develop these skills. After Linda hounded the owners of a local gallery, I was given an art show. People actually gave me money for my efforts. I was beginning to feel more like a prince—an old prince—but a prince nevertheless.
Being an old “prince,” I was beginning to feel my age, and being that, like most old guys, I considered myself to be humorous, I began to write essays to be distributed to my pallbearers so they could have a laugh and I would have the last words. Hmmm, writing seems to me to be a natural occupation of a prince.
Along the way, I accidentally got a website. You must remember that I’m old and accidents are common among the aged. I began placing my “pallbearers” essays on the website, began inviting other artists and authors to join me, and before I could reflect on what was happening, I had an online magazine—a princely accomplishment.
Okay, let’s sum up. I’m free to rise in the mornings when I choose, I get monthly check from my patron the TRS, I paint images that people purchase, write essays that people read, and I’m married to a wonderful princess.
I guess the evening I chose English over philosophy as my major at LSU wasn’t a total loss. I did finally become a prince: it just took a heck of a long time to get there.
enough