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August 29, 2022 - OUTlook by Beth Shockley

School’s Out—Forever

 


On the day I retired this past July, I posted the song, “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper on my Facebook page. The 1972 song, of course, raucously celebrates the end of the school year with children screaming “Yay!” and a distorted school bell ringing at the end. A bit juvenile for me to post the song at the end of my 9-to-5 working life, but the underlying feeling is true nonetheless. It seems I’m a 12-year-old at heart.


I won’t lie—the past few weeks have been pure bliss and sloth. I feel like Sisyphus finally got that boulder over the mountain. Sunday nights now I fall asleep without anxiety clawing my stomach. In fact, that’s most nights now. I take naps. I read the New York Times AND the Washington Post all the way through. I read lesfic books to my heart’s content. I stay up late and listen to music.


But my purposeful laziness is coming to an end. I’m starting to make lists of the things I intend to do now. However, they’re fun things, and things I want to do. After 48 years of working for a paycheck, most of the time doing things I HAD to do for someone else, my time is now mine. 


I’ve been reflecting on my work life. I’ve been lucky, but I also worked hard. I had part-time and summer jobs beginning when I was 14. But I was most fortunate to be hired for my first real job right after college in my field: journalism. I lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where I had graduated from the University of South Carolina J-school. The job was doing news for the state’s public radio network.


My boss sent me on my first story, to cover controversial environmental hearings at the Savannah River nuclear plant, near Augusta, Georgia. I got lost trying to find it, but eventually found my way on the map. I had done some reading up but didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t expect the many suspicious eyes on me as I set up the mic and tape recorder at the front of the room. I sat through the hours-long hearing, recording the whole thing. 


The protestors (yay, there were protesters!) got up to speak. Three of them took to the podium, put gags over their mouths and stood there for an hour. That did not make good radio. 


By the time I got back to the station, it was about 9:30 p.m. I had hours of tape to listen through. I didn’t have the right tape editing tools. I hadn’t indicated where in my notes the good quotes were. The woman running the board that night, Pontheola Mack, took pity on me and helped me at least get the right editing tape. It took me two hours to find some useable sound bites, and hours later, I wrote a couple of versions of the story so my boss could report it the next morning. The sound bites I gave him were too long; he had to stop at about a minute in. There’s school, then there’s real life. Sounds bites at that time, for public radio, should never have been longer than 30 seconds.


But I was a quick study. Eventually, the station decided to produce a half-hour live news show in the evenings following All Things Considered—and I would be its anchor. We called it Carolina 6:30.


I was promoted to statehouse reporter and anchor. I knew nothing about how the South Carolina legislature worked, but I learned as I went along—which legislation and legislators to follow, the smart ones, the blowhards, the scoundrels. Lindsay Graham was a state legislator in those days and he was an asshole then, too. South Carolina was in the process, in the early 1980s, of turning from blue to red. It all made for great radio.


That job was a great launchpad. I jumped from radio news in Columbia to working for a US Senator in DC, to Voice of America, to ABC News in New York, to speechwriting for politicians, national heads of Girl Scouts of the USA and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and various and sundry other jobs in between. My longest job was at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control—16 years as the writer and editor of Outdoor Delaware, a (now-online) magazine.


I’ve had a long and satisfying work career but now it’s time to do what I want with whatever time I have left on the planet. Yes, indeed, school’s out! ▼


Beth Shockley is a retired senior writer/editor. She lives in Dover with her wife and five furbabies.
 

‹ August 19, 2022 - The Sea Salt Table by Ed Castelli up August 19, 2022 - Spotlight on the Arts by Doug Yetter ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • February 4, 2022 - Issue Index
  • March 4, 2022 - Issue Index
  • April 1, 2022 - Issue Index
  • May 6, 2022 - Issue Index
  • May 27, 2022 - Issue Index
  • June 17, 2022 - Issue Index
  • July 8, 2022 - Issue Index
  • July 29, 2022 - Issue Index
  • August 19, 2022 - Issue Index
    • August 19, 2022 - Cover to Cover with Issuu
    • August 19, 2022 - From the Editor by Marj Shannon
    • August 19, 2022 - In Brief
    • August 19, 2022 - President's View by Wesley Combs
    • August 19, 2022 - SUNFESTIVAL Auction 2022
    • August 19, 2022 - Judy Gold Headlines SUNFESTIVAL 2022 by Nancy Sakaduski
    • August 19, 2022 - CAMP News
    • August 19, 2022 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • August 19, 2022 - The Way We Were by Fay Jacobs
    • August 19, 2022 - Community News
    • August 19, 2022 - Training CAMP by Jon Adler Kaplan
    • August 19, 2022 - Words Matter by Clarence Fluker
    • August 19, 2022 - Health in Our Community
    • August 19, 2022 - Health & Wellness by Robb Mapou
    • August 19, 2022 - Health & Wellness: Classes + Events
    • August 19, 2022 - Guest House Chronicles by Tom Kelch
    • August 19, 2022 - Volunteer Spotlight by Glenn Lash
    • August 19, 2022 - Head Out on the Highway by Michael Gilles
    • August 19, 2022 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • August 19, 2022 - Celebrating Tom Wilson by Eric Peterson
    • August 19, 2022 - Dining Out by Fay Jacobs
    • August 19, 2022 - The Real Dirt by Eric W. Wahl
    • August 19, 2022 - Celebrity Interview by Chris Azzopardi
    • August 19, 2022 - Historical Headliners by Ann Aptaker
    • August 19, 2022 - CAMPshots
    • August 19, 2022 - The Sea Salt Table by Ed Castelli
    • August 29, 2022 - OUTlook by Beth Shockley
    • August 19, 2022 - Spotlight on the Arts by Doug Yetter
    • August 19, 2022 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer
    • August 19, 2022 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • August 19, 2022 - View Point by Richard J. Rosendall
    • August 19, 2022 - Deep Inside Hollywood by Romeo San Vicente
    • August 19, 2022 - Dog Days by Pattie Cinelli
    • August 19, 2022 - We Remember
  • September 16, 2022 - Issue Index
  • October 14, 2022 - Issue Index
  • November 18, 2022 - Issue Index
  • December 16, 2022 - Issue Index

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