Retrospect Yr Elders

Retrospect Yr Elders

(varieties of presbyter experience)

He would wheeze up stairs like Darth Vader
& I knew I was in for an hour of argument
regarding a student we’d bounced he thought
unfairly—even bringing the mother in to plead
with me.

Vomited in the road in front of the library one
gray winter afternoon, held up by his younger
stalwart wife, both moving slow thru snow.

He would ramble on about life’s work, boring
students with  anecdotes & collapsing his course
into a semester length treatise on recent
concerns with  ecologic.

He would listen to the World Series, small

radio to his ear, as we discussed significant

changes in schedule, calendar, and core.

He would break wind regularly in our small

office in Carson Basement, me—mortified--

convinced our young secretary would think

I dealt it.

He would constantly explain “how we did it

at Coe College” as we turned over concerns

about required composition.

Break up a faculty meeting with comic
references to Pope, Shakespeare and
Shaw.

Old men with PhD's retired from major
universities and college's with PhD’s we
hired glad to have them satisfy our SACS
ticket punched having shed their shame-
filters & nonchalant where we were uptight
about devilish details, shedding presbyter
aura over us Young Professionals anxious
to do  right and be no more a junior but a
regular fully accredited 4-year liberal arts
college  and a mixed blessing no doubt. 

Elders.