International Flight

Flight 567, Atlanta-Toronto, two carry-ons, the large navy with shoulder straps guarding laptop and uke — and I wonder about the PhD defense I’m headed to — outside examiner, my official title — dissertation solid except for one major conceptual point, and the question “Why me” is burrowing through my brain folds — because this very conceptual point has been the focus of just one hundred of my published papers — and hope says “don’t get sucked into some academic black hole” — an alternate conceptual universe that grabs my shirt, pulling through into several unpleasant academic hours, and because life twists us like the dough for a raw pretzel — that old chestnut, “we shall see”, applies — though I’m thinking I should have read that dissertation microscopically before agreeing — but hey, free trip to Toronto — unseen for decades, the polychromatic fish stalls in Kensington Market still pop up in my memory banks from a visit decades ago, and this may be my last free work trip — travel sans costs now almost the sole perk of the professoriate, because, the “business model” has won the war — administrators no longer lifted from the ranks of esteemed scholars, but just clarks ascended to knighthood — bereft of honor — sinverguenza in Spanish — no no scholarship, nor teaching, only budgets and donor seduction — pressuring even secretaries and custodians to “give back” — their salaries and benefits thin as the frothy scum at the bottom of a latte glass.

Forty years, I’ve been inside the belly of the whale. Two months retired — I’m struggling to learn how one lives underneath a warm custard sun.

Gary D. Grossman
What I Meant to Say Was…
2023, Impspired Press
https://www.amazon.com/What-I-Meant-Say-Was/dp/1915819431/ref=sr_1_1