HEDIR, for Health Educators

Any Week Can Be Spring Break for the Retired

This week is spring break week for the schools, colleges and universities in north central Texas. The schools are closed and the colleges and universities are operating with minimal staff. University libraries are operating on reduced schedules and many other service units are offering limited services, if any. Most of the students and faculty, along with some administrators and staff members are recreating in their home communities or in distant locales.
Spring break was of considerable importance for me and Mary Ellen, my retired professor wife, for at least our entire adult lives. When I arrived at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for fall quarter 1959 (Note: SIU-C was on the quarter system then.), I started a sequence of 50 years during which either I or Mary Ellen was a university student, a school teacher or librarian, a professor, and/or an administrator. Between the two of us, we performed in at least three of these roles at the same time for several years. So until Mary Ellen retired this past December, spring break was special, because we could plan a trip or schedule one or more activities that we could not schedule when classes were in session.
As I noted all the children home from school in our neighborhood and learned of all the travel activities of our unretired colleagues this week, I realized we have the freedom to treat any week as spring break. Some retired university professors even relocate to locales that tend to attract travelers during spring break. Upon retirement, Scott and Libby Scobell, colleagues who previously taught in a university near Charleston, West Virginia, moved to The Villages in central Florida. Marian Hamburg, formerly chair of health education at NYU, relocated to San Diego following her retirement. Mary Ellen and I moved a mere dozen miles or so south to a lake community on the shore of Lake Lewisville, about 25 miles north of Dallas, Texas. All of us have the opportunity to enjoy recreational activities or travel any week of the year. Spring break ain’t what it used to be us.

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