Hi, folks!  We've had a year with very good response to our activities.  Our Winter Park outing, including a water-tour of the chain of lakes, lunch at The Village Bistro, and visit to the Morris Museum, was very well attended.  Lee Sathre did a fine job putting this multiple-activity program together.  Read about this outing farther on in this newsletter.

We had a good turnout for our annual luncheon and for our Estate-Planning seminar.  Read about the seminar in the following pages.

Here's some really good news.  Dr. Sandy Shugart,  Valencia's  new president, has agreed to be the speaker at our annual fall luncheon.  I've spoken to him recently and can assure you that he will be entertaining as well as informative as he speaks about his view of the College and its future.

I attended Phyllis Shemelya's retirement party March 29 and was pleased to see so many of us turn out for the delicious food and the touching so long.  Congratulation, Phyllis.  Welcome to the Club!

This will be the last newsletter until the fall.  I urge you to write Don Tighe and tell him about your travel and other summer activities.  Word has it that the news about ourselves to ourselves is what most of us like best about our newsletter.  Before I wrote this note to you, Don said to me, "Tell 'em to send me news about themselves--and not hide their light under the proverbial bushel."  As he walked away, he yelled, "Even a new will do.  As I told 'em in the last newsletter, that's the singular form of news!"

The other day (really in the middle of the night during my two-hour period of pleasant insomnia) I recalled Will Rogers' line: "All I know is what I read in the newspaper."  Well, I think it was Will Rogers' line.

For whatever reason, his quip got me reminiscing about what I'd learned during my forty-some years of teaching English.  I spent a year teaching eighth-grade English, seven years teaching English and journalism at Concord College, three years teaching English at Millersville State College (now Millersville State University), ten years teaching English at St. Petersburg Junior College, and twenty-three years teaching English (and trying to teach English teachers) at Valencia.

From Rogers' line and my experience in the trenches of academe, I bounced to a second adage, "Out of the mouths of babes," and concluded that all I knew, any smarts I had gathered over the years--street smarts, that is--I got from students.  Here are a few examples.

First, I learned that it is a mistake to have eighth-graders write a so-many-words ending to a story that needs no ending.

We were reading "The Lady or the Tiger," a story in the eighth- grade reader.  As I, and perhaps many of you, recall, the story ends with the hero standing in the middle of an arena (right out of Ben Hur) the bleachers of which are jammed with blood-thirsty men and romantically inclined Roman women--and, I suppose, since I've been to a few Orlando Magic games, Hard-Rock slingers, acrobats, and bubbly but clumsy cheerleaders.

Sweating, the hero stands facing two doors.  Behind one waits (to make this missive more sultry, I almost wrote lounges, but I can't remember-- and I'm a facts man) a beautiful princess; behind the other lurks a ferocious tiger.  The hero's assignment, Mr. Phelps, is to open one of the doors.

If he chooses the door that opens on the beautiful princess, he will be wedded immediately to her with great celebration, despite the disappointed men in the crowd; on the other hand, if he opts for the door that opens on the ferocious tiger, he will be torn to bits and eaten--to the joy, I assume, of the men and the chagrin of the women.  (My lovely wife, Deedee, would cover her eyes or flip to another channel.)

The story ends as our hero opens one of the doors, but the author never reveals what is behind either door.  Soooooooo, being the young teacher I was and suspecting that I'd get no more than a sentence if I didn't specify, I assigned the class to write "in 150 words or more" an ending that made clear the fate of the hero.

The results of the writing assignment were predictable.  All of the girls had the hero open the door behind which lounged (oops, I said it, and I can't unsay it) the beautiful princess.  Out she came, the ceremony was performed, and the duo lived happily ever after--of course, in 150 words or more.  Girls then weren't Madonnas and divorce was unheard of.

On the other hand, the boys, being olden-days boys, had other ideas.  Behind their door paced the ferocious tiger, and, as expected, out s/he bounded.  (When she's hungry or otherwise upset, a she tiger can be just as ferocious as a he tiger.)  One enterprising lad fulfilled the word-count creatively:  "When the hero opened the door on the right," he wrote, "the ferocious tiger lunged at him and scratch, growl, scratch, growl, rip, tear, rip, tear, gnaw, gnaw, gnar, gnar, bite, bite, chew, chew, shred, shred, crunch, crunch ... and the man was dead."  I counted--150 words.

Another eighth-grade boy, reluctant to produce 150 words and not as eager to have the hero chewed to bits, wrote this:  "When he opened the door on the left and the ferocious tiger jumped out, the hero was so scared that he was petrified.  So the tiger bit him and broke off all its teeth."

Years later, and on a more advanced level, a Freshman Comp I student attacked my late-paper penalty.  "Late papers," I had written in the syllabus*, "will be penalized 10 points for each day they are late."  Tom Brown, one of my more thoughtful students (now one of the biggies at Honeywell) raised his hand and asked this rhetorical dandy: "Sir, [I knew I was in trouble!] considering your late-paper penalty, I wonder what will happen if we hand our papers in early?  Will we receive plus points--ten plus-points for each day they are early?"

He followed his question with an essay titled "The Plus-Track Paper" in which he showed, very logically (he was a math whiz), that he could take the second half of freshman composition with me, turn in an "F" research paper on the first day of class, and with the plus points for early delivery make an A in the course.  Needless to say, I eschewed a late-paper penalty from forthcoming syllabi*.

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*I use the words syllabus and syllabi loosely in the former two paragraphs, for in the good ol' days no self-respecting English teacher used either a syllabus or syllabi.  Instead, we delivered the news of the day or the week or the semester orally or by scrawling it on the blackboard in front of classrooms filled with students who came to class regularly and showed up on time.  It is my humble opinion that the syllabus, along with other inane ideas promoted by schools of education, echoed by nervous administrators, explained opaquely by cliche-bound consultants, and embraced by carping politicians, is one of the prime reasons for the decline in education since the '60's.  But that's another subject.

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Incidentally, one of my former colleagues--a member of this club, in fact, whose name I'll not divulge--used the word sillybus to describe the document.  I suspect, however, that s/he aspired to be "a sage on the stage," not "a guide on the side."

But back to the ranch.

Two or three years later, I asked an honors freshman composition class to explain in their own words what Herbert Gold meant when he wrote, "The encounter with classroom reality has caused many teachers, like meeting the relatives of Heloise, to lose their bearings."  What I had hoped for was that the more enterprising and intellectually curious of the class would rush to the encyclopaedia (the Britannica) and look up Heloise.  Had they done so, they'd have discovered that Heloise was the student of Abelard, who, roue that he was, wandered off the subject one day or evening, and impregnated her body instead of her mind.  As a result, her

relatives attacked Abelard--or sent several hit men--in the middle of the night and castrated him.  Thus the word bearings is an excellent pun, and I was hoping my scholars would identify such in their written explanation--followed by a footnote, of course.

Well, what they wrote is irrelevant, but what ensued was relevant. On the next essay, one of my students used the title "Bear Baiting Back Streets," which I marked with red pen as unclear: "What do you mean by 'bear baiting'?"

His rejoinder was a low blow: "You expect us to research what Herbert Gold alludes to, but you won't do the same for what we do." So I rushed to the encyclopedia!

I suppose this message should end, but I'm not sure how to end it except to paraphrase Will Rogers: "All I know is what I discovered in the classroom--and in the encyclopedia."

RETIREMENT PARTY FOR
CAROL RILES

Carol Riles' retirement party will be held on West Campus, 6-202,
on June 15 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.  All are invited.  For additional
information call Curcita Pabon, ext. 1622.

Lee Sathre is organizing a tour of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague for Spring 2001.  It will be for ten days and twelve nights.  Included are airfare; ground transportation and transfer; city tours of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague; all breakfasts and four dinners.  The cost, if booked before 26 June 2000 is a few dollars shy of $2,000 per person, double occupancy.  Available is an optional baggage, medical, and trip cancellation insurance policy for $126.

A deposit of $150 is required before 26 June 2000 to guarantee space and the current price.  The deposit is 100% refundable for the first 30 days.  Then a $100 cancellation charge will apply.  Final payment for the trip is due 71 days before departure (around the beginning of February 2001).  If you want more information, please call Lee Sathre at 407-896-4881, e-mail him at LSATHRE@CFL.RR.COM, or write him at 4304-C Lake Underhill Drive, Orlando, FL  32803.

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To celebrate the April retirement of Phyllis Shemelya, a reception was held March 29 2-4:00 p.m. on West Campus.  Phyllis has been a West Campus faculty member since 1972.

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So he can keep up with Retirement Club news, Jim Gollattscheck sends us his new address:

Although Jim is now living in Texas, he says that he never knows when he'll be back in Florida--for a visit or who knows?

He writes, "Bellaire is one of several small incorporated towns completely surrounded by Houston.  I am enjoying living back in Texas, but may ultimately decide on Florida.  I moved here after a brief research sojourn in Gainesville this past winter.  I spent almost all of 1999 in Montreal, Dublin, Milan, and Nice.  I am busy now updating and rewriting my last book (Choose Florida for
Retirement) for a second edition to come out later this year.  Please give my regards to all my old VCC buddies."

Marsha Gurr (1982-98, Professor of Office Systems Technology) has this to say about her first year in retirement: "Retirement is so much fun!  I don't know how I found time to work all those years.

"I spent my first year of retirement traveling and working on my genealogy.  Since I retired from Valencia, I've visited and vacationed in thirteen states and the District of Columbia.  Much of my traveling has been connected with genealogy searches.

"During one cemetery hunt for deceased relatives, my brother and I took a wrong turn that accidentally turned into a blessing.  We stopped a Missouri farmer on a tractor to ask directions, and he turned out to be a grandson of our grandfather's brother.  Through him, we found out about a family reunion that was to be held last September.  At the reunion we met more than sixty relatives we didn't know.  I am now an officer of our family reunion for the next two years.

"My research has revealed the genealogy of part of my family back to my sixth-generation great grandfather.  Another line in my genealogy has taken me back to the 1600's in Germany.

"I'd really be interested in attending a workshop on how to go about researching genealogy information.  I've done a lot but there is so much more if I knew how to do it."

Betty Palmer e-mailed me to say that she thought she had sent information for the Retirement Club but that she doesn't see her name on the roster.

[Ivan, let's get her name on the roster pronto!]

Betty retired in 1998 with the first Drop program, but she is still working for Dr. Larry Gay Reagan, vice president for curriculum development, teaching, and learning.

Although she has been interested in the trips, she has been unable to go.  She says she is really sorry she missed the Winter-Park boat trip.

Betty is active in the FACC Retirement Commission and would like to see more people involved.  "It seems," she adds, "that the Commission is becoming increasingly active as more college employees retire.  If anyone would like to talk to Betty about the Commission, drop her a note at DTC-4 or call her at Ext. 3421.

[Betty, I'll see Ivan and we should be able to get you a list of everyone's current addresses.  Meanwhile, make sure you keep in touch.]

Peggy Phillips writes to tell us that Ellie Haburton was in Orlando in March to attend the wedding of her best friend's granddaughter.  (Ellie coordinated the reading program on West Campus until she retired.)  Ellie also had a grand time visiting the Orlando neighborhood where she had lived for 44 years before moving three years ago to California.  Peggy says that Ellie and her daughter
Sarah now live in that same neighborhood.

Now living with her daughter Cathy in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, Ellie says she misses her Florida friends but that she is enjoying her life in Los Angeles.  Cathy has gone back to school to work on her doctorate at UCLA.  She also works at UCLA as a part-time senior editor in Media Relations.  Senior Citizen Ellie, says this about that: "It's great to have a daughter who is now a senior citizen and who is starting to school."

[Is there such a thing as a senior senior citizen?  And is Ellie one of them?]

Peggy goes on to tell us that Ellie is quite busy playing bridge with several different groups.  She is, in fact, going to Mexico this month (April) for a week of bridge.  She's going with Eddie Kantor, a bridge teacher who has written 30 books on the subject, and several other players.

[I'm assuming that Ellie is playing duplicate bridge, and I suspect that despite Kantor's 30 books, Ellie is smarter than he is and that she might even be a better bridge player.  I would have challenged her to a bridge duel when she taught reading on West Campus--if I had known she played bridge.  Come to think of it, I'm glad I didn't know she played bridge.]

Ellie helps out at election time at the Culver City's City Hall.  Her latest venture is volunteering at an elementary school two blocks from her home.  She teaches reading to four children in the fifth grade.

Don Rutledge (1971-95, Director of Athletics and Professor of Physical Education) writes to tell us that he reads each edition of the Newsletter and that he is sorry he can't, at this time, be with our group to enjoy and share our good times.  He says he wants to continue to receive the Newsletter and that he would like all the membership to know that in retirement we show the same class,  enthusiasm, energy and teamwork that they showed the students at
Valencia.  He says, "We [including Don, ed's note] are a quality group!"  In case anyone wants to get in touch with Don, his e-mail address is

drutledge@WNBA.com or drutbball@AOL.com.

[When I was writing the above, I almost wrote that Don had been a "Professor of Phys Ed," but I changed my mind as I remembered what Irma Caton, a colleague and professor of physical education at Concord College, used to say when anyone said "Phizz Ed":  "Sounds like a cocktail!"  Incidentally, Don, we'd all be interested in  knowing the part you are playing in the WNBA and if you are still one of the referees for the Final Four.  But then we can all find out by watching the playoffs next week.  We suspect that if the Gators make it, you'd not be called to do any game they'd be playing in.]

Rosemarie Sireno (1974-87, secretary to Louis Edwards and Debra Hopkins) writes to say she enjoyed working at Valencia and is now a house-wife.  Rosemarie and her husband enjoy dancing weekly and entertaining friends at home whenever possible.  They manage to travel two or three times a year and often visit their two married sons, who live up north and, of course, we visit them often.

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 NOTE If you don't want to receive further Retirement Club mailings,please contact Ivan Applebaum at iapplebaum@gwmai.valencia.cc.fl.us or at Valencia Community College, P. O. Box 3028, Orlando, FL 32802.

So we can keep up with each other through the Newsletter, how about filling in the blanks below and mailing the information to me at the address below.

Your Name

Year You Were Hired

Year You Retired

Position You Held at VCC

Recent Accomplishments