May 23, 2008
Friday

Sit by my side, come as close as the air,
Share in a memory of gray.
Wander in my words,  and dream about the pictures
That I play of changes. . .
I’ll kiss you one more time, and leave you on
the rolling river shores of changes.
                        — Phil Ochs, 1940-1976
American singer-songwriter

It was a day not unlike today, that Friday in May of 1992. Lynn was six and ready to start first grade in the fall. I was 45 and ready to start a second master’s degree, the one that would provide the foundation in nineteenth century history and culture that I needed to write my historical novel. We had maybe ten days of school left, the air was warm and fragrant, and summer stood just outside the door, shimmering with promise.

I sat alone in my classroom mid-morning, doing some thinking. I had to make decisions regarding money that belonged to Lynn, an aggregate of some generous gifts from her grandparents and her Uncle Flash. I had recently been reading financial writer Jane Bryant Quinn, who described paying for college as “the Matterhorn of personal finance.” I had some strategies in mind, and some investments in growth-oriented instruments in place for Lynn. Always looking for adventure, though, I had also become attracted to a unique idea — a mutual fund designed to grow through some risk taking but to be held over time with the possibility of a handsome payoff at the end.

I decided to devote a modest amount to that. The fund had to be held, the principal untouched and the dividends reinvested, for at least ten years or until the beneficiary was 18, whichever was later. I had to pick a date for this instrument to mature. Lynn’s high school graduation was 12 years down the line and she would be 18 and ready to start college. June 1, 2004, I wrote on the form.

My time alone was almost over and I had to get ready for the next period. Classes were changing as I moved through the crowded halls toward the copy room. I turned the corner at H-wing and saw, sitting on the floor and more or less blocking the entrance to the copy room, the little group I thought of as our school’s version of the Manson Family.

The central figure was a senior boy with a biblical name and a brilliant mind whose conservative parents were known for their generosity and for opening their home to youngsters whose own family situation had become intolerable. He was clearly a boy acting out, a boy in rebellion against his family’s wholesome, All-American image. Favoring the grunge look with stringy hair and tattered clothes, he seemed to be the polestar in a constellation of girls who danced attendance upon him. He always had at least two of them hanging on his arms.

As I got to the door of the copy room the two girls did draw their legs in so I didn’t have to step over them. (We had met this way before.) But then another teacher was coming out of the room, and we had to be nimble and be quick to avoid a collision and an upset.

“Guys,” I said. “Let’s get up. You’re really making things difficult here.”

Nobody moved. One of the girls snuggled up closer to Charles Manson and kissed him on the cheek. I gave the direction again. Charles Manson looked at me stupidly and then laughed.

“YO!” I said. (Veterans of the halls of Lower Dauphin can tell you about that “Yo!” Lynn hates it.) “Let’s move NOW!”

With that, they did move. As one of the girls rose and came to eye level with me she muttered under her breath words that had Us and Ks and -itch in them. And then the little group shuffled off.

I looked hard at them as they moved away from me. The girls were the same age Lynn would be on June 1, 2004. Suddenly I wondered about the wisdom of turning over an investment account that might have grown to five figures to someone that age. I returned to my classroom, and before I started class, I amended the date: June 1, 2008.

Well, here we are.

Lynn will be here tomorrow to stay for part of the weekend. Waiting on the counter for her is a thick folder with forms for her signature. She’ll be applying for continued insurance coverage under my former employer until she gets a job with benefits (How long, oh Lord?), waiving her rights under her father’s policy, and taking control of the investment fund that provided her room and board while she was in school. There’s not much left — we’re at the top of the Matterhorn, and the view is beautiful. And, of course, once she signs a letter requesting the proceeds, she’ll be mailed a check representing what happened to that chunk of change I put aside for her back in 1992. It’s a smaller sum than I had dreamed of, but it is still significant.

Lynn is a level-headed and practical young woman. But, having devoted a lot of her time the past several years to esoteric learning in science labs, she’s inexperienced in the nuts and bolts of regular life. She asked what she was supposed to do with this money. I told her that her options were pretty open, anything from adding it to the leftover room and board money for retirement or some other long-term goal to blowing the whole thing on a kick-ass home entertainment system complete with 50-inch plasma HDTV.  As her financial advisor, of course, I was recommending the first idea.

I have every confidence that’s what she’ll do. She’d have done that at 18 as well. When she leaves on Sunday afternoon I’ll kiss her one more time, and continue my prayers for her as she sails her rolling river of changes.

The youngsters I tangled with that morning in 1992 have chosen not to list themselves in the alumni directory of the school where I taught. They’d be in their mid-thirties now. I hope all is well with them.

To be included on the notify list, e-mail me:
margaretdeangelis [at] gmail [dot] com (replace the brackets with @ and a period)