SHS 1958 Graduate Robert Reid Lawrence

Robert Reid Lawrence

Here is quick chronology of my life since skipping out on class day, 1958:
June-December, 1958, Stock clerk State Office Supply, Columbus, Ohio*
December, 1958-January, 1960, clerk typist in a law office, Columbus, Ohio**
Spent Christmas, 1959, with Miss Johnston in Louisville and decided to move in with her and begin attending University of Louisville.
Spring and summer, 1960, worked and attended UofL part time. Fall began school full time [part scholarship, part National Defense Loan]. Graduated, June, 1963.
1963-64, taught grades 7-8 at Shawnee Junior High.
1964-66, Took classes towards an M.A. at Wagner Lutheran College, Staten Island, NY [graduate assistantship, taught freshman English]
1966-1973, Taught English full time at Wagner while doing more graduate work, first at NYU and then at Columbia's Teachers College.
1973-1976, Administrative Assistant, Gibbs&Hill, Consulting Engineers while finishing graduate course work and beginning doctoral dissertation
1976-2005, Taught at Jefferson Community and Technical College. Finished my dissertation in 1978. Had several jobs there including 13 years running the Academic Advising Center, which led to a lot of interesting travels, state, regional and national committees, liaison work at U of L, etc. Joyce Stribling Forcht can fill you in.
Also during this period did some adjunct teaching at Bellarmine College and UofL.
Had a sabbatical 1969-90 which I spent here in this apt/condo and did more study at Teachers College, Columbia University.
I spent all of my Christmas-New Years vacations here after Miss Johnston died in 1978. My companion/partner, Sy Reich [whom I met in 1966], and I decided years ago that we would retire together.
Ironically in December, 2004, a colleague at JCTC explained how and why he was going to teach until age 70. Since I had had a medical leave spring, 2001, I had gone back to full time teaching and was able to spend summers as well as Xmas here in Jackson Heights. Also in 2001 [I had turned age 60 11/9/2000] I decided that when I turned age 65 I would sell the house. Miss Johnston's parents had built it, so it had never been moved out of. So I decided that while I would sell the house, I would get a condo in Louisville and teach for five more years, spending all of my non-teaching time here in Jackson Heights.

Best laid plans of mice and men [Burns, English IV, 1958]: In January 2005 I had a detached retina. In July I had two more. One in the left eye and two in the right eye. Facing medical leave and turning age 65, I retired, cleaned out the house [WOW!! Was that a job] had an auction, sold the house, and was here in Jackson Heights by Thanksgiving, 2005.
My right eye still had problems which did not get diagnosed properly for several months; I had corrective surgery, March, 2006. By August my eye had healed, I could see amazingly well and was able to drive again.
In the meantime the person in Louisville taking care of my car [Ford Explorer] telephoned saying that she had a buyer. I said [totally without thinking], "Sell it." Given the difficulty of parking on the street here*** as well as the fact that my insurance would cost three times what it cost in Louisville, and eventually I would need to pay to park it off street, I have never regretted selling. When I want to drive, I rent a car, often - as next week - hundreds of miles from NYC anyway.
*I was born in Columbus, Ft. Hayes Army Hospital, November 9, 1940 Learned to walk, so I am told, at Ft. Benning, GA, then returned to Columbus to live with my father's parents as my father was shipped overseas for WWII. [Lived with mother and her parents in Zanesville, OH during the school year and back in Columbus for summers and Xmas. Mother died in 1954; I then moved to Louisville to live with my father and step-mother.]
**This is the attorney, friend of maternal grandmother, who got me emancipated at age 17 under Ohio law.
***Jackson Heights is a very congested part of NYC's Queens Borough. We are mostly 5-story apartment buildings or row houses. Very few stand alone houses. Most of us are minorities; I am not sure there is a majority population here. To our east is large Latino [a large assortment of Columbian, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Caribbean, etc. peoples] and to our west is largely South Asian [Indian, Pakistani, Afghans, and Sikhs who are disliked by both Pakistani and Indians, i.e. Hindus and Muslims as the Sikhs tried to combine the two religions/peoples.