Back to School

Every June for 23 years, Eric would be jubilant. Summer break! No teaching for 10 weeks! We’d immediately switch to the rock-and-roll lifestyle: stay up late and sleep in the next morning. He’d make lists: cleaning projects, poetry to read, garden to-do’s, songs to write. We’d figure out travel plans. We’d watch baseball games. We’d increase entries into our Beer Log (ranking new brews we’d try from 1 to 10, and adding tasting notes). Summer was fun.

But by mid-August, when the fireflies dwindled, the sun set earlier and the garden flowers started to poop out, we knew the idyll was coming to an end. Back to school. Eric would say we needed to prepare, start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. And then we 100% would not do that, as we clutched at every last bit of summer. The night before his first day we’d stay up especially late, listening to music and adding to the Beer Log, then the alarm would go off at 5:50am and we’d step back into non-vacation life.

While Eric was a bit gloomy about returning to work, he knew he was lucky. He liked teaching the kids. Plus, he knew what life was like in a year-round office job. The Cubicle, as he called it. Because before he became a teacher, Mr. Markowitz worked as a writer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas*. Sound familiar? It’s an outplacement firm that’s quoted all the time about workplace trends - mostly about how much time employees waste during the Super Bowl and March Madness.

Eric wrote resumes and letters for laid-off workers. In a downtown office building. In a cubicle. While wearing, well, not jeans and a t-shirt. If you know Eric, you know this is not his crowd. He hated it! After a year or so he tried to get fired, coming in to work later and later and leaving earlier and earlier each day. No one cared. So he outplaced himself by getting a teaching job at an alternative high school in South Chicago, while at the same time getting his master’s degree in special education.

I always admired that he knew that The Cubicle was not for him, and that he was willing to do the big work of making a big change. A lot of people thought he shouldn’t quit a “good” job. But he took the risk. And he found his niche, with the big bonus of a summer break.

So today is Chicago Public Schools’ back to school day, that bittersweet transition when one thing ends and another begins. Anxiety mixed with anticipation. What will happen? It’s a handy lesson for life, kids.

[* FYI, Challenger is a real guy, but Gray & Christmas are made-up names. Eric thought this was the dumbest thing ever.]

You know the “first-day” photos that fill social media feeds everywhere? Here is Mr. Markowitz heading off in 2022.

The psychedelic, Peeps-themed Beer Log. My favorite entry by Eric, for a beer called Hell Kitty Kitty: “I wouldn’t order it, but I’ll gladly share one with you.”

Does this dude hugging his Squatty Potty look like a corporate cubicle dweller? No.