I want to welcome all of you friends family colleagues present past but most of all students because you although occasionally frustrating me also nourish me kept me going for 40 years at Fort Silicon and I do appreciate that I really do I'm going to echo Lou Gehrig's words today I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth to have had such a good career so many good people helping me along the way but I have to tell you unlike Lou Gehrig I'm not dying of some dread disease and I know that there
was a final lecture given a few years back and I'd actually thought of doing this before he did his and so I purposely avoided listening to it or watching it because I didn't want to cross-contaminate but now this summer I can finally read his final lecture which I understand was pretty poignant this is going to be I hope a positive uplifting experience I'm going to talk about things I've learned in the past 40 years of teaching as well as thanking some of the many people who've helped me along the way and I know I'm not
going to be able to thank everybody but several of the key players are definitely here today I've never given my final lecture before so I have no idea how long it will last I hope to be about a period about a 50 minute period I also don't know how smoothly it'll go normally I've given a lecture at this point 40 50 100 hundred 50 times and I can actually do it from memory this is newly created so I may have to look down in fact I know I'll have to look down because I don't want
to miss anything that I put down in the notes for those of you who've had me as a teacher you know I teach by anecdotes stories I've always believed that the concepts will be better maintained if a story is attached to it and so I'll be telling stories today including stories that will involve people in this room for certain okay I got to go back to the very beginning actually before I started teaching here we used to do outdoor orientations for our students I wish we still did they were wonderful we made attachments I mean
they lasted and lasted and lasted but the very first meeting I had with the college was the summer of 71 and the first outing I believe was a hike to Snow Lake up by help and Paul and as I was queueing up in the parking lot I met a guy by the name of Dennis Morton Dennis with his little cute cheeks his little dimply knees and he actually had a pair of lederhosen on you remember that Dennis I became fast friends and team taught for 35 years together this is Dennis Morton those of you those
of you have taken the human sex class last couple years it was done solo by me but I would refer to Dennis quite frequently because we were a team for so many years in fact our joke was we actually outlasted our first two marriages which is not a funny joke but there's truth to it we were closed for a number of years so what did I learn from Dennis then I used to say with some frequency humans are put on earth to well that was his good version depending on his mood it was screw up
foul up or eff up and I didn't quite get it at first how many of you suffer from perfectionistic ideals yeah it's one of my faults I wanted to be perfect I wanted to do everything right and of course nobody is perfect and it really bothered me but Dennis helped me and through the years I've gotten better at being able to make mistakes and not feel terrible about it in fact even laugh it off as I did the other day when I feel to record a week's worth of papers I laughed it off and I
made it right that's why I'm retiring right anyway Dennis was kind of my first introduction to Albert Ellis and those of you teach psych or no psych you know Albert Ellis he came out with the muster basins and the tyranny of the shoulds and I would say this every one of you should print a list of his irrational beliefs and keep it on the wall of your office this is this is serious you're going to find at least three or four of them our faults that you hold one of them wanting everything to be perfect
and if it's not perfect it's a disaster Dennis helped me with that before I knew about Albert Ellis and I'm really grateful of that Jimin came Mullin stand up Shula crowd at least put your hands up Jim taught psychology here Peck he came before me he was at Albertson you one of the original founders some of you know that we started in the Albertson's in Lakewood Center which is now a goodwill I believe so he predates me he's one of the originators when I got hired I wanted to be Jim Mullen he probably doesn't know
this but I would actually lurk about his classroom watching and I was so taken by his fluidity his smoothness the responses he got from his students and I envied him I wanted so much for that to be me and it wasn't I had a very very herky-jerky start part of that perfectionism I wanted every student to love psychology and love me I quickly realized that wasn't happening and I actually resigned on February 14th of the first year I taught here dr. uphill the president of the college would not accept my resignation it was a very
difficult time having put in two years of graduate work to teach and not feeling I could do it but Jim and Kay who served also as surrogate parents for my wife and I because our parents didn't live nearby they weren't too far away could always go out to dinner and they'd be supportive excellent surrogate parents I went out there in the fit of depression one night thinking my life is basically over I can't teach what am I going to do Albertsons wouldn't even hire me because they said you have too much education very frustrating but
anyway I went out there and Jim took me outside and I don't know if he remembers this but he put his arm around me and he says look up at the stars Marty I did and he said now ask yourself how big am i and it came through all of a sudden I realized once again another Albert Ellison idea I had catastrophize I had taken the failure and thought everything's over my life is you know in total disrepair and I kind of laughed I still remember laughing and luckily the resignation was not accepted I came
back and things got better but I have to tell you this Denis Morton got the same group of students the next quarter how was it Denis it was a really unique group and yeah it was very difficult but anyway I I remember that so well because truly he saved my career and possibly me but it also reminds me of something I heard a little bit later I'm a huge fan of the film Casablanca I think there are just so many great lines that come out of it one of them Rick turns to Ilsa and he
says the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world here's looking at you kid classic okay and for those of you who catastrophize man that's one of the things you know we're all going to have downfalls we're all going to have problems and if we build them into huge mountains that we can't climb up our lives are going to be very very difficult it's much better to learn from our mistakes and move forward and I learned that slowly but surely okay Keith Forman heard Keith go I've never
told him this I don't think but Keith's Foreman saved my life literally when I started here I was sedentary overweight smoked nearly two packs of cigarettes a day I was probably on target for a death in my late 40s or early 50s my mother did pass in her early 50s my dad had his first stroke in his late 40s but keith was here and he's such a humble guy he's a world-class athlete who was the fourth American to run a sub 4/5 American I'm sorry fifth American rubba run a sub four-minute mile he and three
other men set a world's record in the floor by mile relay okay Helsinki something like that he doesn't talk much about keith was runner and i thought you know maybe I should try and he encouraged me and I still remember lacing up my Chuck Taylor that's for bocce my Chuck Taylor converse all-stars and running about a half mile and truly thinking I was going to die my face turned beet red I couldn't catch my breath it was terrible but he encouraged me says don't worry about distance just try to go a little further when you
can and he was so good at it he would run with me even though I was a toad I mean I was just so slow I remember when I got to be a better runner one day we were going to try to workout together I think he'd already done ten miles at a sub six pace I picked him up I couldn't keep up with him for the next five and I was fresh he was always a person who I ran behind but he taught me the value of being in shape and I think it's why
I am alive today and I think especially young people in America it's so sad how many are out of shape terribly overweight running risk of type 2 diabetes early heart disease strokes at cetera et cetera and you don't have to be a super athlete I'm on the Wellness Committee here and this fall we're putting together a handout for our staff here to get them to do a little exercise in the office believe it or not you know about 20-30 minutes a day of even vigorous walking can make a big difference physically and mentally so anyway
don't be a super athlete in fact probably I shouldn't have run as much as I did my knees now tell me about that okay moving on when I first started teaching here I was actually younger than virtually every student I had in class I was 24 the average age of students I believe was close to 30 when I taught lifespan development the first time never felt so inadequate I'm in a room and I was in fact the youngest I think I may have been the only person in the room who didn't have children or grandchildren
and I'm telling him about lifespan development Wow I can remember some of the older wiser students just looking at me just and I knew I had a lot to learn well luckily in 1973 we had a daughter Beth and she's down in California I'm going to send a DVD so she gets to see this in 75 we had a son Christopher he's working in fact he may be in Alaska is he in Alaska Nvidia I'm not sure if he is but he works and couldn't be here but two wonderful children and suddenly I realized a
lot of what I've been teaching was just theory nothing like having kids to change your view of psychology that was very good now each of my children have two children so I've got four beautiful grandchildren and it's quite quite nice okay when I hear students say they don't want to marry or they don't want to have kids trust me there's just so much more to your life when you have a partner and when you have your own children okay moving to the early 80s I had a crazy notion to become division chairman and I'm not
sure exactly why I actually had a belief and I've shared it with a few of my colleagues that each of us should serve in that quasi administrative position so you have an understanding of FTEs and why you have to balance budgets and the stuff that you have to do administrative ly so I took it on and it was out of in my view a very bad time for the college we had a president I'll just mention first name Bob I can tell the older people know exactly who I'm talking about anyway Bob was the president
dick MOG where's dick raise your hand Nick had been division chair and was moved up to Dean of instruction and I then was working under him as the division chair and one of the things we did every year was set goals for the next year and so I said minor easy he says what you ready to get I said I'd give him off top of my head this is what are they I said well one goal to be here next year you remember that dick anyway he kind of latches no Marty got to come up
with some serious goals I said I'm serious I want to be here next year well about two months later I got a phone call from dick he said Marty you're my boss now like a what he says I'm back to being a faculty yeah you got axed by the president and I suddenly realized something being an administrator can be very tenuous I you crossed the wrong person or somebody doesn't like you whatever you can suddenly be gone luckily he was tenured and he came back but I was always embarrassed he would call me boss and
it was so embarrassing because when he's senior to me he'd held a truly administrative position but also and he doesn't probably remember this he helped me so much in terms of managing people in one of our meetings and in those days you fought amongst one another for budgetary dollars it was kind of brutal it also fought between student and you know instructional Dean's we had a fellow from the library and he said something that just pissed me off so instead of handling it in a mature fashion I kind of turned his expression back and I
mocked him I thought boy I'll show him you know how you kind of imitating Enya after the meeting ended dick asked me to hang around he said I think you really disappointed me and I thought well actually disappointed myself - that wasn't very professional and he said something I've never forgotten never mocked somebody back to do that in their voice and kind of repeat what they said it's ineffective and it just really lowers you and that was a powerful piece of learning he taught me some other things also about administrating that I used in other
settings once I stopped being division chair but I really appreciated that it really did mid to late 80s divorce probably now definitely the worst period of my life I think most of us marry thinking we're going to stay married forever and ever and when things start going sideways and relationships don't go right it can be a real shock I remember coming into school and the only thing that saved me was my students I could go into class and for 50 minutes forget about what was happening in my personal life it was wonderful but as soon
as I left and went back to my office I just sat and stared it was difficult but then I realized I had to pick things up and start moving again this work keith foreman actually probably saved my life a second time I had quit smoking I believe in 1976 I was very down and as the marriage is unwinding I started smoking again I don't know if Keith remembers this but he saw me smoking and he said something like I can understand your feeling pretty self-destructive but why do something so deadly I thought yeah I kill
myself over this so anyway I quit smoking once again and probably once again he he put me on the right direction as I say there are people in this room I really do have to thank about this time Dennis and I took some bad actually more of a leave of absence we both went back over to Pacific Lutheran University for marriage and family therapy it was actually quite good for me because I had questions about relationships it wasn't like my first graduate school where I was just trying to get a degree I wanted to know
answers and I did quite well in the program I got some answers and what I'm going to do is kind of just run through some of the things I learned about relationships that I truly think if you can not only hear understand but employ and that's the hardest part I've had so many students listen to my presentations they hear it but do they actually use it I can tell you in the world of psychology the proof of learning is actually the performance keeping it in your head really doesn't work so for those of you haven't
heard these you might try to at least employ a few of them for those of you already know it none of us are perfect I don't apply all of my learnings every time but I work toward doing it more frequently I think that's the best we can do as humans going back to Dennis's comment about messing up in our lives and messing up so first one it's not so much what you say it's the implication drawn by the listener and that's really triggering one you can be saying what you think is one message and they
can pick it up totally different I'll just give an example it's hypothetical but for years I had a cabin up in packwood and when I got married the second time my current wife has a daughter and that you say I said to her one day let's go to the cabin this weekend without your daughter my thinking is we can be more intimate we don't have to deal with a third person da da da she could take that to mean what I don't like her daughter whoa not meant but that's what could be received okay and
this is where I think a lot of our misunderstandings are truly when somebody has heard it and interpreted differently from the message we were trying to send and this is where if you can ask for clarification in Venice and I always stress this when we talked about communication if you're not sure of what's being said ask get clarify if it really is I don't like your daughter we need to deal with that talk about it if it's just that I want a little alone time probably it would have been an issue see what I'm saying
okay implications often speak louder than the words by the way there's also the flip of it sometimes you say something that's meant to be nasty and they take it positively by the way on those I just let it let it slide second whether this is huge when a woman says there's a problem listen and be responsive one of my heroes I have several fellow the name of Gottman out of the university of washington and he spent a lot of time analyzing relationships that work and those that fail found some fascinating things successful relationships people argue
and fight about as frequently as those that are unsuccessful contrary to what the literature suggested what he found is that people who are successful in the relationships they fight resolve things and move on to new issues instead of the same thing coming up over and over and over and over again that's what where is you down in relationship when you can't resolve it and you feel beat up and you finally say it isn't worth going forward okay so he and his colleagues did a study where he took the most at-risk marriages put groups pardon me
to subgroups of those most at risk one kind of traditional communication sort of counseling the other one they worked on one thing the man listening and being responsive to what the partner said of the group that did that they were all intact a year later of the group that did the traditional most as predicted were separated or divorced what was funny was why didn't they say women need to do this and the answer was pretty simple women know this women typically do listen and try to respond appropriately to their partner so guys this is a
real tip if your lady says please put the toilet seat down and you say well you could do it as well as I could trust me you can push a woman and you can push a woman but women will tell you you'll hit a place where something flicks off in their heart and they no longer love you and once that flicking happens you're not going to get it back on it's done you might as well start planning the divorce or the separation okay what else did I learn you cannot unring the Bell I love law
and order and of course you always shout something out in court you know the jury will disregard oh yeah sure once you've heard it seen it it's out there you can't undo it okay and this is where especially in interpersonal relationships measure your words you say something hurtful it'll ring or echo in their memory forever you just can't make it go away so you've got to be very very careful this also applies so much to interpersonal stuff at work where you can say something to a co-worker and maybe not even taking or maynot that seriously
but it can just ruin relationships you can't unring the Bell this is a huge piece I learned when I was doing counseling you cannot control other people take control over what you can control which is yourself okay when you're doing counseling is so frustrating people want others to change so they can be the way they are and I can tell you if the world is not going to change for you if there are changes you're going to need to accommodate to the world or accept the way the world is okay whenever I have people who
are really down and out I say what do you have control over nothing my whole life is a sham can you decide if you take a nap or go to bed early what you eat whether you exercise people when they're really down and out forget about the fact they have control over themselves and that's really all they do have control all over the rest of the world sometimes is a pretty crazy place as bogey said to Bacall and it wasn't the call what was it Elsa was Ygritte Berg or Birdman Oh beautiful girl she was
what 17 or 18 she was very young very young couple of other things I learned this is so huge and I'm not sure where I picked it up when people divorce they so frequently want to blame the other person the other person was a jerk the other person was a you know that sort of stuff and it's it's so misguided because it doesn't really move you forward and to place blame on the other doesn't really move anything in a good direction what I learned was and I love this if you have a failed relationship it's
the relationship that failed and I can prove this and I do it every time I talk about it in class everyone in here has relationships with people where it works you get together and it's like a smooth dance you can talk it's just easygoing and everybody in here has relationships when you get together it's all herky-jerky you just don't fit and yet you're the same person you're a nice guy right it's a relationship okay which by the way as a marriage and Family Therapist is a good thing because you can work on relationships dynamics of
relationships okay but often when you're working and you see this - I'm sure in your clients they want to blame somebody instead of realize it's the relationship you got to make some changes in how you relate to the other person the last thing I'm going to say on this my first wife tried very hard to domesticate domesticate me my second wife is continuing the effort I'm not sure either will totally succeed but I want to say this both ladies are going to be vitrified I'm sure after their passing and some of you probably don't know
what that means you can look it up but I'll give you a clue it'll be Saint Anne or Fermi's st. Elizabeth Ann and Saint Nancy and for those of you knew me in the early days I think Nancy was even referred to as a saint quite often single again ooh boy yeah got to do repair work for those of you been there you know what I'm talking about you need to get yourself back on balance I met a gal when I was dating as a single again and she pointed out another one of my recurring
flaws I hate to be wrong and to be honest it helped that happens not too often so I don't handle it too well I don't handle it too well but I am anyway being wrong is difficult for me and she said would you rather be right or have friends and that was a very sobering question and I made my decision the I'd rather have friends and much like not having to be perfect or being able to admit I screw it up it's another version of that I can now admit I make mistakes that I'm wrong
anyway it's a healthy thing and it's so so easy okay the other thing I learned out of the marriage and family now what was it it'll come back to me skipped over okay yeah I learned something really powerful in the marriage and family curriculum how many of you know what one downing is is that something that's out there a lot I think it was relatively new to me when I heard it one downing is where you're in a confrontation with somebody instead of escalating to the next level you know oh yeah and your mother to
that sort of thing you back down and you say well I'm sorry I guess I made a mistake or you know da da da you step back and I didn't realize how powerful that was until after that program it's a good thing occasionally I forget it and that's dangerous well you escalate with the wrong person it can get really ugly fast but I work hard at one downing and if you can take one thing away from this work on one downing when Dennis and I teen taught he would talk about the swirling vortex of marital
discord because it was in the class we talked about marriage but it's in any form of discord discord I'm so saddened when I see bumper stickers that say I don't get mad I get even you know those sorts of things you know people are so quick now to jump to the next level rather than backing down and being civil and I think we need to encourage more people doing the one downing and those who you've never tried it it's a real healthy experience it takes the fight out of the other person what are they going
to do argue you were in fact wrong there he's like wow okay and you don't have to go further with it okay so one downing that was the one I almost skipped over another thing I did as a single is Linda here Linda Sorella did she come Matt and see her I got involved with rope training high and low courses and I got a lot of my certification completed I may still want to pick that up for those you don't know high ropes is kind of like basic training but we call it human development okay
this was camp Arnold and you've been out to cramp Arnold high-ropes I have a pretty substantial fear of heights and I do climb mountains but that's a healthy thing when you're a mountain climber I don't do technical but get in some places where it's a little bit goosey part of the high ropes is to climb up 40 feet on these metal spikes that stick out of a tree and then between two trees 40 feet off the ground is a 12 inch log secured not very big now on the ground walking on it it's a piece
of cake 40 feet up well before you do this you get to pick who's going to be your coach I pick Linda Sorella and she said what do you want me to do and I told her it's just that's what I'll do I said the rest of you I want you to be quiet I climbed how many know about Elvis leg I'm standing up there it's now 46 feet to the ground and my leg starts going it's weird it's uncontrollable I'm doing this Elvis and we'd been worried about it well I also stopped breathing which
is real common when you're nauseous so Linda's down there freeze Marty breathe oh yeah oxygen helps with all this leg now before you think I better walk out there without you know any sort of security we are all roped in and in fact Linda is belaying me from below or she's on guard you know in case I were to slip and I started walking out went to the end turned around walked back came to the middle and then fell backwards and let her let me down to the ground I can tell you if you ever
get a chance high rope training is a very intriguing thing it gives you more self-confidence it makes you realize that's why they do it in you know training for military they want those guys and gals to be in any circumstance low ropes to be honest I wasn't as excited by those but the high ropes man if you get a chance it's good good training well what did I pick up from this that was very useful how many of you've had a challenge where you felt oh my god I can't do it okay for whatever reason
and somebody said oh yeah you can do it you can do it you can do it how many had that I want to know does it help you know Dan who taught the class he pointed that out if the person doesn't believe it'll work you're saying you can do it doesn't help at all but we were taught something that's a great lesson to learn what you can say to the person is is there anything I can do to help you be successful person will usually pause they'll say yeah if you did this and now it
comes from within the person and there's a good chance you can help them it also fits beautifully with the idea of scaffolding those of you know about education theory you know you take them from where they are and you help them get to the next step we don't do it for them you don't simply say you can do it so what could I do to help you be successful I occasionally forget that but I try to put that in whenever there's a person doubting their abilities okay the world of work a lot of this relates
to work Doug Bernstein you remember Doug psychologists teaches at Way was at University of Illinois Champaign I'm not sure where he is now I think he's in Florida he did workshops and they were the best workshops I ever attended on teaching of psychology two things actually three he actually put together a list of Ellis's things for teachers used to have it on the wall I still have mine on my wall but he also said two things that were so useful to me he said build a happiness file how many of you have a happiness file
right now only a small number of you as soon as you get back to your place of work your office if you're a student where you do your studying get a folder or a big envelope every good thing that happens to you put it in there and then on bad days and we all have bad days don't we you can look at your happy file mine is really fat it's bulging with letters notes Awards things I've you know cherished over the years luckily I rarely had to turn to it but I knew it was there
I knew my happy file was there if I needed it okay the other thing and this is especially for those of you who are teachers or plan to be teachers I think it also could apply to just anybody working he said in every lecture do something that makes you giggle on the inside even if the class doesn't get it and I'm sure over the years I've done things in class and started cracking up and students have thought what the hell is that about but it kept me going and it was funny only occasional lecture there's
always a few topics that just aren't fun topics and I couldn't find anything fun to do but virtually every class I walked into on the inside there was something just bubbling I couldn't wait to say or do and that kept me fresh okay and those of you are teachers you do need to do that okay the later years it's going to work out pretty good I think in the last oh five or so years I become increasingly philosophic about things is Emily here Kibaki yeah by the way she's a great teacher if you're looking for
a class to take I really enjoy I'd go in just for the fun of it sometimes we even swap classes one day we didn't tell the administration we just just did it it was a ball it really was for each of us so what have I learned philosophically I think one of the first things I picked up on was at least my interpretation of a Zen idea to give up expectations but always maintain hope and a lot of people get that kind of confused I mean you don't have expectations now because expectations almost always result
in bad feelings you expect certain things it doesn't happen then you're disappointed okay so I say no I don't expect it but I'm certainly hopeful every class I walk into this presentation I'm hopeful that it's so good I'm pleased at the end but I certainly don't expect it because I don't want to go away disappointed and for those of you get the drift of that it's a nice little adjustment in the way you think about the world maintain hope but don't have the expectations okay quotation time rabbi Zhu saya he wrote when I reached the
world to come God will not ask me why wasn't more like Moses he will ask me why I wasn't more like Josiah I think that I had become more myself this is now me speaking when I heard that I thought yeah the research says often young adults try so hard to fit into their world instead of being who they are and this where I get to tell the younger people something that I hope makes them feel good as you get older you're going to become increasingly yourself at least that's the typical finding some of what
I am is a little bit irked some of the people but you know I am a little bit of a show-off and I'm a little bit this a little bit that and I accept it okay and my friends are probably pretty accepting of it too but you've got to be true to yourself it's a lot of work being somebody you're not and eventually you're going to fail at being something you are not okay great existential questions what is our purpose what is the reason for our existence another writer who is a hero of mine Henry
David Thoreau some of you know that Bill krieger who used to teach here wonderful man he built by hand a pretty much replica of the Thoreau cabin over here above the pond and he said that Walden Pond was about the size of liquid hop and he used to hold reading classes and English classes and summer things and then unfortunately started getting vandalized and stuff happened it had to be torn down but it was kind of exciting that he was involved with Thoreau and so I read more of Thoreau and some of you are going to
recognize this I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life and of course that was echoed in Dead Poets Society which is one of the I think coolest films that's out there if you've not seen it you dig it out I think it's Robin Williams best film ever but it's got
some really strong messages about leading a life fully and being true to yourself okay Thoreau also said most men lead lives of quiet desperation I think that's all too true I think although eighty ninety percent of Americans say they're Christian I think most are not comfortable with the fact that eventually they're going to die most according to maslow lead half led lives because the pervasive undercurrent the fear of death haunts them I like Maslow because he talks about sometimes you have to take chances but people would rather play it safe and that's that quiet desperation
piece I don't know who said it but I think Mullin used to use it you got to let go of the pole to reach the brass ring now what's interesting young people here probably have no clue what I just said and my guess is some of the older students or adults in here may not know either in the old days the merry-go-round there was a little constant feed of brass rings that kind of drop down by gravity to get a ring though you had to let go of the pole and lean way out on your
horse to snag and of course they had a big pile of sawdust there because a large number of people fell off their horse okay but I love that expression you have to be willing to take some chances but now going back to the Dead Poets Society you don't fly into the flame if you're a moth you don't take crazy risks as some people do most typically young guys because they think they're 10 foot tall and bulletproof but if you're having a bad job look into getting a different career if your relationship really sucks change it
or think about a new relationship Maslow was said to be selfish I think there's nothing wrong with being somewhat selfish you need to be willing to do things that allow you to move if it's a partner issue invite them to move with you but if they're unable or unwilling to move sometimes you have to say I only get one shot at this and I need to reach for that brass ring okay it's a nice little thing for people to contemplate one of the things I share with some of my classes is my age and we'll
see how many can recall because I just said in one of my classes how old am I who said it 26 now some of you are going 26 the man's deluded but actually I suffer from progeria also alopecia and I'm going to die with that that some of you know these terms what I'm talking about when I get into this with my class is how old I feel and there is your chronological age and that's 64 for me but there's also your psychological age how old you feel I feel 26 it's part of why I
really enjoy going up and having lunch with my students I feel like I'm just slightly older than them on average a couple years out of grad school teaching here for a couple years just kind of getting comfortable with that and then I see my reflection and I can tell some of you who are in the first couple of rows know what I'm talking about it's like oh my god my dad took over my body who is this old guy in this young you know person's body anyway I'm 26 and this leads to an interesting thing
days are long years are short when I first heard that I thought that's stupid and it's wrong my god years are 365 times longer than a day duh I can tell you the older I become the more true it is I mean I can look at Dennis and still see the cute little chubby cheeked boy and his lederhosen I remember Jim Mullen telling me god Lobdell to have thick hair and I thought well big deal I think differently about that now okay the years are going to fly by and you're going to be someday standing
front of a group thanking them because you're going to be retiring you're going to go where did those years fly by to my little kids are now approaching 40 40 my little babies okay and their little babies will be grown all too soon okay trust me days are long years are short this gets me to my last honoree he's in the back row name is Steve Jake we have an award here called the distinguished faculty award it's looked at by faculty and then bestowed on a faculty member and through the years I mean some really
wonderful teachers have been honored one of the early ones you're about second or third year can you remember was it the first okay I've confused Clark's sake Dennis was maybe right after you were you second tell me about days and years okay Steve was the person who won the award and he talked about the value of humanities now this has been a number of years ago and I've had so many students tell me what I said and I go I never said that but what I remember the message and I think I'm correct it was
something the fact that the science is of course helped with technology and math that's same and dadada but the humanities make makes life worth living something to that effect was am i close to that yeah okay and you talked about how your poetry or your prose classes have helped people have new ways of viewing the world I remember sitting there being so impressed it was a great great talk and I thought to myself when I took my lip classes and learned some poetry or some you know prose I didn't quite get it I thought how
can you make a living at this how is this going to give me a job so I was looking at that functional aspect and what I didn't realize is what you said in that talk was true it was giving me a new appreciation a new understanding it was making my life worth living so it was like you clarified something that had been going on for a number of years I really appreciated that so I'm going to close with a poem one of my favorite poets AE Housman and obviously those you teach you know about Hausman
this one goes something like this loveliest of trees the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough and stands about the riddlin woodland ride wearing white for Eastertide now of my threescore years and ten twenty will not come again and take from seventy springs a score it only leaves me fifty more and since to look at things in bloom fifty Springs leave little room about the woodlands I will go to see the cherry hung in snow when I first read that poem I was twenty years old and that catchy little thing about of my
threescore years into ten twenty will not come again that's me okay well now I've passed the three scores okay I think now I'm going to get more than the plus ten actuarial table say I should go to at least mid-80s but who knows but anyway I love the poem because once again it's about enjoying life and living it to the fullest I usually talk about this in my lifespan development the last lecture and I talk about something that I find so sad I used to commute and I'd go by the cemeteries up above chamber Creek
and I'd pass by and look at people in the cemetery often down prostate on the ground crying apparently wailing gnashing their teeth I think to myself did they show any of that emotion when the person was living and my guess is sometimes they hadn't and they came to realize something but once a person's dead you can't have those conversations so it's springtime the cherry was hung and snow okay it's now past that but I think appreciating not only life but those in your life and sharing that with them is very important I thank you for
coming it's been a great ride and that's what three o'clock there's going to be some sort of a function up in the rainier building thank I'll do it again thank you very much thank you
