Do you have what it takes to be a bum?

The photo above is this morning’s breakfast at a small resort hotel near the airport I will be leaving from tomorrow. Quiet, clean, inexpensive and secure with amenities - pool, bar, and restaurant. After a few days with my brother and sister-in-law at their home not far from here, I have a couple days to relax. Truly live the life of a bum.

I’ve had a few opportunities to be a bum over the years. I’ve spent time in Phuket, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador at small resorts where I have had little to do , and nothing required, except eat, sleep, swim, walk, read, and write. Sound like heaven? Well, it can be challenging.

I’ve worked since being a kid - farm chores, college jobs, and 43 years as a professional educator. Even while holding a full time teaching/administrative positions, I also consulted, wrote, and served in professional organizations. Let’s just say I was rather busy most of my life.

Now I have almost nothing on my to-do plate. I volunteer - a lot - but certainly not full time and at my discretion. So even at home there is always something to do.

Not so being a traveling vagabond. It’s an adjustment. Here is what you need to know to be a happy slacker…

Pick a good location. I personally love small resorts that are away from big cities. Less traffic noise, better places to walk, and usually friendly and personal. Pick a warm, inexpensive country. Stay away as much as possible from popular destinations. Funny how I’ve never seen a movie star where I stay.

Go easy on the eating and drinking. For many people, relaxation includes a beer or Coke in one hand and a bowl of chips in the other. I usually have a healthy breakfast, skip lunch, and even have a light supper. I do like a couple beers in the evening.

Talk to people. I am not the most outgoing of people, but I enjoy short conversations with others I meet. Where ya from? How long ya staying here? Recommend any good restaurants? 

Travel light. Take just a few changes of clothes. Easy to find a local laundry or have the resort wash your clothes. I pack everything in a carry on rolly-bag/backpack. So far no complaints about my odor.

Be good to yourself. Nap. Get a massage. Take a walk. Just lay near the pool. It’s work to accomplish this without a shadow of guilt, but you will adjust.

Have a book to read and a project to do. I load my Kindle before every trip. Nothing like a good book to read with no distractions. I usually have a writing project. Most of my books were written in part at a resort’s pool side table. It’s that lack of distraction thing again.

Maintain a routine. Although it is a 14 hour time difference, I still read my newspapers in the morning. They are just the ones from the previous day.  I still walk an hour or so a day. I keep up with my email and social networks on my small travel laptop. I nap each afternoon.

Schedule a tour or two. I am looking forward to my adventures on Siagaro and Palawan Islands next week. I plan to do some boat tours, some snorkeling, and guided hikes if available. I won’t go crazy, but I do plan to break up the week.

Adjust to the culture. As Dorothy once said, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” Buy a new SIM card for your phone. Eat street food. Ride in tuk-tuks and jeepneys and local buses. Walk in the residential areas, away from the tourist spots. If you don’t, you may have just as well checked into your nearest Holiday Inn. There is a backpacking culture too from which one can learn how to slow down and be spontaneous.

Do it your way. It may take a few tries, but you will find your own happy place being a bum. Or perhaps discover that a life of leisure is just not for you. In my pre-retirement plans, I figured I would spend at least three months a year as a total slacker. I have found that four or five or six weeks is plenty - and not consecutively. Do what you want without the need for approval from anyone else. Perhaps that is the real secret.

Any hard learned lessons from my readers about being a bum?

Well, that’s enough work for today.

Early accomplishments

Miles, following in his older brother’s footsteps, was officially recognized as an Eagle Scout this week. This grandpa could not be more proud.

Only 10 short years ago Miles began his Scouting adventures:

My “involvement” with both Paul and MIles membership in Scouts began when I called to ask my daughter if a certain weekend in early November was a good time to come to their home in the Kansas City area for a visit. “Awww, Dad,” she said, “that happens to be the weekend of the joint Boy Scout/Cub Scout campout that I will be helping with… Say, YOU wouldn’t want to be the boys’ chaperone that weekend instead of me?” Much to her relief, I said yes.

Thus began a multi-year annual event of going with Paul and MIles to a camp where the Boy Scouts provided a camping experience, activities, and food for the Cub Scouts in their area. We shot bows and arrows, threw axes, did compass navigation, cooked over open fires, and had evening campfires of ceremony and song. Miles and I usually shared a tent - I remember waking up in the middle of the night and not finding Miles or his sleeping bag beside me! It took a few seconds to realize he and the bag had scooted to the very bottom of the tent where he was curled into a little bundle.

Over the years, both boys made solid progress in achieving Scout goals - ranks, merit badges, leadership positions, and Order of the Arrow awards. They went to camp each summer. They participated in Boundary Water Canoe trips and hiking adventures including Philmont and Rocky Mountain National Park.

I would like to think these early accomplishments have given these two young men the mindset that they are capable of accomplishing challenging goals. Caring parents, good health, strong values, and superior intelligence are a dealt-hand that all children should be able to play for a long and fulfilling life. Paul and MIles experience with the Scouts is just one more card in that winning hand.

Oh, I was also a Scout in my misspent youth. I never made it to Eagle but as I once reflected…

… Boy Scouts did teach me a lot that I still value. I learned that a little hardship while camping or hiking is survivable and makes a good story. I learned that good people always leave a campsite better than they found it - and that perhaps we should all leave the world a little better place as well. The laws of Scouting “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent” are still my moral compass, even if I can no longer recite them from memory.

I'm glad I retired when I did

Once upon a time, there were fairies, knights in shining armor, Amazonian warriors, and dragons - and places where being a school technology director was really fun and rewarding. I remember those mythical years quite well.

I have now been retired for nearly four years and when I see headlines like the one above, I feel lucky to have left the profession when I did. Remote learning over the past couple of years must have placed a huge amount of pressure on technology departments nation-wide. Security concerns were real and growing. Technology, what had once been a wonderful, exciting enhancement to F2F instruction in K-12 schools, suddenly became universal and mission-critical. 

1991,after teaching 14 years in the classroom and building level libraries, I became the “AV coordinator” for Mankato schools which at the time had an enrollment of about 7000 students and about a dozen school buildings. To the duties of the retiring AV guy (running a film library, supervising the AV equipment technician, and developing B&W film), I was given the task of being library supervisor. Oh, and the half-time math teacher, half-time computer tech was also thrown in my department, much to his dismay. 

This was all in the early 1990s and we all know what happened in the following years - computers, networking, information systems, and that new thingie call the Internet exploded. We put computers on all teachers’ desks and gave training on how to use AppleWorks. We helped teachers get email addresses and use gradebook software. Soon the student information system, now networked throughout our buildings and district, didn’t just allow, but required that all teachers use their computer to report attendance and submit grades. 

That was the start of when being a tech director started to become serious - when technology was not just a nice extra, but a vital component of a well-run school district. When the tech didn’t work, neither could the humans in the district. Tech directors now had to be able to communicate effectively with other administrators about why a good budget which afforded redundancy, adequacy, security, and replacement was essential.

For the most part, however, I loved my job. New and exciting tools were available almost every year and there were alway technophiles in the teaching ranks who were eager to try them out. My staffing levels, budgets, responsibilities (and salary) grew. And for the most part, I really liked my staff and co-administrators.

But over the final few years, the problems surrounding the financing of “redundancy, security, adequacy, and replacement” overshadowed the excitement of the new, even as we rolled out Chromebooks for every student. Expectations, accountability, and managerial tasks leeched the educational aspects out of the job.

The news story above made me shiver remembering an incident when our student information system went down for a few days. School went on, but I was quite certain that my boss was going to put a hit out on me. Having increasing expectations of an already overworked staff was not a pleasure. 

So in 2019, after 28 years in this exciting field and at 67 years of age, I willingly stepped away, happily knowing that younger, brighter, more enthusiastic leaders would easily fill my shoes. (And they have.) 

There seems to be a worker shortage in many, many fields today - especially in education. Are others leaving the field as the joy of education is replaced by exceptional expectations?