April 2001

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Catching up with Jack Adams

When Chancellor James Moeser spoke at a meeting of the N.C. Press Association recently, something he said shook up the crowd.

Within five years, he said, a third of the present faculty members at UNC-CH will retire. Actually it may have been a fourth, and it may have been 10 years, but whatever — when a man of authority says something as important as that we pay attention. (Well, if we had paid more attention, I suppose we would have the statistics right.)

But imagine what it will be like when hundreds, yea, thousands of faculty members leave their hallowed offices and descend on the town looking for something meaningful to do to fill time.

You realize, of course, that the image above is false. The fact is that retirees are not universally bored, and they don’t have to work hard to find enough to do to keep busy and fill the hours once spent fulfilling their teaching roles. Most retirees — or at least most of those I know — have more than enough to do, thank you very much.

One neighbor in the retirement community where we live repairs furniture for Habitat for Humanity. Another builds clocks. A third is a woodworker of great skill. And those are just our near neighbors. Others learn about or teach computers; others learn or teach Spanish; still others are volunteers for every imaginable organization.

The manner in which the retiree redesigns his or her mode of life varies, but few fear stagnation.

Our solution, in part, was for P. B., my wife, to continue working. She has been a realtor in Chapel Hill for 20 years, and even though we have moved to Durham, she is still involved. Now the commute to the office is 12 miles instead of two. You’d be amazed at how big that difference is. But she perseveres.

I, too, have been productive, but less so and in varied ways.

Some years ago Bobby Wagoner, then head of the Elderhostel program in North Carolina, asked if I wanted to teach at one of the five-day-long programs that organization sponsored. I worked on a course outline and turned it in.

"Okay," Bobby said. "Let’s do it."

As you might expect, I chose to teach something familiar — mass media. The course title was, and is, "From the Printing Press to the Internet," subtitled something about where we get our information and what changes have happened to the process over the years.

Elderhostel programs, which are given all over the world, are usually five days long. Typically there are three courses, an hour-and-a-half each, every day, plus some field trips. The students are older — 55 or above is the current standard. Class size varies — some have about 35, some as many as 50.

I taught my 23rd Elderhostel course in November 2000, in Flat Rock, N.C., at an Elderhostel sponsored by Blue Ridge Community College. I also taught at UNC-CH before that program collapsed and at several for the University of South Alabama in Gulf Shores.

There are two reasons for going on about all this: 1) It explains in part what I do with my time, and 2) It offers an idea for all those soon-to-be retirees to follow up when they find they have too much time on their hands. (If they ever have too much time, which is unlikely.)

I have to keep up with what is going on in media. (Oh, boy — is there a lot going on in media!). Okay, you with access to Barbara Semonche’s expertise and facilities have no trouble, especially if you have student assistants running all over the place digging out data. But, an out-of-town retiree doesn’t have those luxuries.

I read two papers daily, listen to news, and pick J-School brains whenever I have a chance. And to help in the information-gathering process, there is the World Wide Web. Since I teach a course occasionally, I have an excuse to surf the Web early, often and in depth — and once in a while I find something relevant for the course. (Of course there is more to the Web than work, but who wants to admit that?)

That’s part of what we do. Then there is travel. We have been to 40 Elderhostels altogether, and we visit son Mark and his family in Maryland and daughter Jane and her husband in Florida. We have been to Europe several times, but now we are more content to travel domestically, mostly on the East Coast.

Retirement is a challenge, in part because it tends to coincide with the acceleration of the aging process. There is a great deal to be said for the advice to "take one day at a time."

And as a rule that is our pattern. But we have also thought that, as P. B. explains it, "You can’t not plan for the future."

So there we are, living today and thinking about tomorrow.