Rule Number One: Learn the Value of Hard Times
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those that he has.” (Epictetus)
I have a great life today. I have the perfect job (teaching high school English), wonderful kids, a loving wife, and tremendous friends. Heck, even my dog is a stud! He is a 150-pound Bullmastiff named Conan, and he is pictured later in this book (Don’t you dare turn to the pictures yet!). But life hasn’t always been this way for me. I was terribly shy as a kid and grew up poor. My dad worked in a factory and did the best he could, but he was a high-school dropout, and his factory kept laying off workers, forcing my dad to take work wherever he could find it. I remember many times when he had to go far away to get work, and we wouldn’t see him during the week; he would come home on weekends, but he was so tired, he didn’t have much energy or time to spend with us. Even when he had work in our town, he often worked 60-70 hours a week, so my brothers and I didn’t see him much. My mom made up for it. She was (and is) the perfect mother, tough enough to get down and dirty with her three boys, strong enough to run things on her own when my dad was working, and intelligent enough to encourage us and help us with our school work. I can never remember an athletic event as a kid when my mom wasn’t there. My dad was there for most of them also, and although we didn’t have much growing up, I had great parents, and that more than made up for a lack of material possessions.
I overcame much of my shyness through sports. I was always one of the best in my class in just about every sport, and we had a neighborhood full of mostly older kids, which made me get better much faster if I wanted to play with the big boys. Sports gave me confidence in myself, and they have always been a big part of my life. They got me through a very difficult time in life as a kid, and that’s one of the reasons why I can’t understand why so many people are trying to cut funding for high school sports. Take my word for it as both an educator and a former participant in high school sports. We would lose a lot more kids than we do if they didn’t have sports in high school. Furthermore, the lessons they teach are invaluable. Much of who I am today I owe to high school and college football coaches who, along with my dad, showed me what it means to be a man.
My favorite sport has always been football, and football helped get me out of Effingham, a small town in southern
The first few years of our marriage were happy. We didn’t have much, but we had our little boy and then our little girl, and we loved each other, and that’s all that really seemed to matter. However, when Josh was 18 months old, he contracted spinal meningitis. He spent 18 days in the hospital and nearly died several times. It was by far the worst time in my life. I taught school during the day, drove into downtown Chicago to the hospital, which took about three hours in traffic, to spend the evening with Josh and Cathy, and then I’d drive home and get three or four hours of sleep before getting up the next morning for work. When Josh finally got out of the hospital, he couldn’t walk. He had to go through years of therapy, relearning everything, and he was never the same kid after that. He suffered from drop seizures, was terrified of people, and retreated into himself. To her credit, Cathy, my wife, took time off of work and stayed home with him for the next few months so he could complete therapy and learn to walk again, but it was a slow process.
A year later, our daughter was born. She was a beautiful baby, just like her brother, and we had our family, for we always wanted a boy and a girl, and now we felt like our family was complete. We named her Shelbi, after the Julia Roberts character in Steel Magnolias. The first year of Shelbi’s life was a great year for our family, but the following year, things started to fall apart.
Cathy came home from work one day and informed me that she was being transferred from where we lived in suburban Chicago to Santa Barbara, California, and that there was nothing she could do about it. My choices were either to follow her to California or put an end to our eight-year marriage and break up our family. I chose to leave my teaching job in Illinois and follow my wife to California, a state that had completely different requirements for a teaching degree. This would force me to complete additional coursework just to be allowed to teach in the state. I was not happy about it, but if I wanted to keep my family together, I didn’t have a choice.
Because Cathy was transferred in February, we agreed that I would stay behind so I could finish out my school year and Josh could finish his. The kids stayed with me while Cathy moved to
In the four months that we were apart, Cathy came home to see us twice. The first time was great. We were a family again, and Cathy and I were still very much in love, looking forward to the summer when we would be together again. However, the second visit was a completely different story.
As soon as Cathy stepped off the plane, I could tell something was different. At first, I just told myself that she was tired, but during the three days she was home, every time I tried to get close to her, she pulled away. She tried to tell me she wasn’t feeling well, but I had been married to her for eight years, and I knew when she was sick. Something was going on. She didn’t even kiss me the same. When she left for
In the meantime, I was offered a job at one of the most prestigious school districts in the state of Illinois, Glenbard District 87. One of my best friends had just been hired by the district, and he could not say enough about the job, the pay, and the schools in the district. He told me about an English opening at his school, Glenbard South, and I decided to interview for the position. Although hundreds of candidates had applied for the job, I was offered the position by the head of the English department at the school, a wonderful lady named Marybeth Mohan. When I was offered the job, I wanted Cathy to leave the Navy so I could take the job and we could stay in
When we arrived in
“I told you, I had some errands to run.”
“For EIGHT HOURS?!!”
Then she decided to come clean. “I stopped by Joe’s house for a few beers.” Joe was the former boyfriend of her friend from work, and the father of one of her children. Now he was Cathy’s friend. I would find out in the months to come just how good a friend he was.
“So let me get this straight. The kids and I haven’t seen you for almost six weeks, and you decide to drop us at a hotel and have beers with Joe for eight hours? Is that how little we mean to you?”
She looked at me and started crying. I should have known something was wrong after her last visit home and now this, but I didn’t want to believe it. “Is something going on, Cathy? Do you want us here?”
“Of course I do. I’m sorry. I guess I was just nervous and feeling guilty that you left your career to come here. I know I’m shit for doing what I did today.”
“No, you’re not shit. You’re my wife and I missed you. I was hoping we could spend some time together tonight, now that the kids are asleep.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m really tired. Maybe tomorrow night.” She then went to brush her teeth and went to bed. Nothing of an intimate nature happened the next night, or the next, or any of the nights during the six weeks I spent in California. I would soon find out why.
Strange things began happening in
“That’s funny. Your friend said you took the day off when I tried to call you at work this morning. How come you’re wearing your uniform?”
“Oh, well, I had to go to a funeral and didn’t want anyone to know.”
I soon started getting calls from creditors about credit cards for which I hadn’t applied. She often came home late from work, and when she did get home, she’d go back in the bedroom and listen to music by herself for the rest of the night with the bedroom door closed, not coming out to talk to the kids or me. After about several weeks of this, I had had enough. I couldn’t find a teaching job in California with an Illinois teaching certificate, and it was pretty obvious that Cathy didn’t have feelings for me anymore. I couldn’t afford to waste any more of my life on someone who didn’t care about me, so I finally confronted her one night after we put the kids to bed.
“I need to ask you a question. If it weren’t for the kids, would you care one way or the other if I were here?”
What she did next stayed with me for a long time. She looked me dead in the eye and coldly said, “No. I wouldn’t.” And that was it. Although my divorce wouldn’t come through for another year, my marriage was over at that moment.
“That’s all I wanted to know. I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t believe you let me quit my job and follow you out here just so you could ignore me. Is there someone else?” I felt I knew the answer to that question before I asked it, but I wanted to hear it from her.
“No. That’s got nothing to do with it.” I will never believe that she wasn’t seeing Joe. Months later, she brought him home to meet her parents and introduced him as her new boyfriend around our hometown, but she swore that she wasn’t seeing anyone when I asked her that night in
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m going to call the airline and get tickets to go home. I’m taking the kids with me. If you want to fight me for them, that’s up to you, but they’re coming with me.”
“I won’t fight you for the kids,” she said calmly. “We both know they’re better off with you.” And just like that, I became a single parent. Cathy drove the kids and me to the airport, dropped us off, and our family was gone. I don’t want to make it sound like she didn’t care about the kids; she loved them dearly and cried all the way to the airport. Looking back, I know she did what she thought was best for them, and that had to be difficult for her. But I knew she no longer cared for me; that much was obvious. I had never felt so alone in my life as I did on the plane ride home, wondering how in the world I was going to raise two small children by myself.
I moved in with my parents. I had no choice. In the few months she had been in
I hated Cathy. I don’t know if I ever hated anyone in my life the way I hated her for what she had done to me. She cost me my job. She cost me my dream job with the Glenbard School District. She didn’t care about me. She left me. And now I imagined her partying it up out in California while I was jobless with two small children to raise, living with my mom and dad. I hated her for that. I pictured her and Joe sitting in a bar somewhere and laughing it up at my expense. But it drove me. I began reading self-help and self-improvement books. I planned out my life. I had a razor focus on my future, and I was obsessed with making a better life for my kids. I didn’t care what I had to do; I was going to give them a good life, in spite of what their mother had done. To be fair, Cathy has stayed in touch with the kids over the years, and we have tried to stay friends for the kids’ sake. I don’t think she’s a bad person; I just think she valued her freedom and partying back then more than her family.
After almost a month of living with my folks, I received an unexpected phone call from my buddy Jim Snyder, with whom I had taught and coached at my old school and who helped get me the interview at Glenbard South. He told me that an English teacher had suddenly died at another high school in the district, Glenbard North, and they needed someone fast. Only two weeks of the school year had passed, and if I could somehow get the job, I could get the kids into school and daycare, start making money, and get my life and career back on track. I don’t think I’ve ever had an interview with so much riding on it. I just HAD to get that job.
I showed up at Glenbard North in my best suit, as nervous as I could be. This was a school of nearly 3000 students; it looked like a college campus. When my name was called by the secretary, I was invited into the principal’s office, and waiting for me there were three women: the principal, the assistant principal of instruction, and the head of the English department. I originally thought I’d be interviewing with a male principal and that we could talk football and sports to break the ice, but that strategy went out the window in a hurry. I had no idea how to approach this interview, so I just decided to relax and be as honest and friendly as I could. To my surprise, the interview only lasted about 15 minutes, and when the principal finally said, “I guess that’s about all we have,” I thought I had lost my opportunity. I waited for a few seconds, and I was just about to excuse myself when all three ladies started grinning at each other, just before the English department chair looked at me and said, “Well, it looks like Glenbard North is now Mr. Rodgers’ neighborhood.”
It took a few seconds before it registered and I knew what she meant, but I couldn’t believe it, and I had to make sure. I looked at the principal and said, “Does that mean I have the job?”
She smiled back at me and said, “It sure does, Jim. Welcome to Glenbard North High School.” I felt like the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I had a four-hour drive back to my parents’ house in Effingham, but I didn’t mind. I cranked up the radio, loosened my tie, and enjoyed the ride home. However, now the hard work would begin. Still, at least now I had an opportunity to get it all back.
Since I had almost nothing left after Cathy strafed our savings account, my mom loaned me $2000.00 to get an apartment and buy some new clothes. That was a lot of money to her and Dad, and I’ll never forget how much they sacrificed to help get me back on my feet financially. I still had to find daycare for the kids, get Josh signed up for school, prepare for my classes, and move all our things up north. I also had to spend some time in my new classes so I would know where to begin when I took over from the long-term substitute who had been teaching my classes for the first two weeks of the school year. I didn’t know where I’d find time to do it all. But I didn’t care. I was so happy to have another chance, away from Cathy, that I woke up every morning attacking every task. There was no way I was going to let this beat me, and I didn’t. I got the kids in daycare and school, worked like a madman at my job, and planned for better days ahead. I knew they would come; I just didn’t know how or when. I think that helped me stay the course during the tough times, and I had plenty of those. A quick word about the teacher who had taught my classes until I took over. Her name was Jo Blaufuss, a retired Glenbard North English teacher, and she took me under her wing and helped me in so many ways that she didn’t have to. She gave me lesson plans for the rest of the semester, class materials, a day-by-day schedule she had worked up for the first quarter, and tons of classroom notes. Jo has since passed on, but I will always be in her debt for what she did for me. Thanks, Jo.
I knew if I wanted to make enough money to buy a house for the kids and me, I would have to get my Master’s degree. The only time I had available to go to class was at night and during the summers, so I had kids from my classes baby sit Josh and Shelbi while I went off to class at night. On nights when I had class, I wouldn’t get home until 10:30, and then I’d have a couple of hours of grading and work to do for school, so I’d get to bed around 1 a.m. and then get up at 4 a.m. and do a quick workout and shower before getting the kids up and getting them breakfast before getting them ready for school and daycare. It was incredibly hard, but I got my Master’s in about 18 months. After that, one of my best friends, Denny Erford, another English teacher at North, told me that I shouldn’t take time off before getting my additional 45 hours of graduate credit to get to the top of the salary scale, or I’d never go back and do it. I was tired of taking classes in addition to my job, but I knew he was right, so I dove in. I took every correspondence course I could get my hands on, sometimes completing an entire course meant to last for a semester in a couple of weeks. I completed the entire 45 hours in 11 months! To give you an idea of how tough that was, a normal college course is 3 semester hours, so I completed the equivalent of 15 graduate-level college courses in 11 months, and during 9 of those months I was teaching full-time.
I’d like to say a few quick words about Glenbard North High School before I go on. There’s a popular book out right now entitled How Starbucks Saved my Life. It’s written by a man, Michael Gates Gill, who took a job with Starbucks after losing a lucrative advertising job and going through some of the most difficult times in his life. One of these days, I just might write a book called How Glenbard Saved my Life. Since coming to Glenbard North High School, my life has completely turned around, and I owe so much of that to the staff and students of Glenbard North. Some of the best friends I’ve ever had or ever will have, I’ve met at Glenbard, including Denny Erford, Gary Krasno, Dave Berdis, Paul Peterson, and the rest of the Glenbard Retirees. However, the real stars of Glenbard North High School are the kids.
We used to have an administrator who would periodically come on the intercom and say, “Glenbard North has the best students on the face of the planet!” Of course, he hid in his office most of the time and would have no way of knowing that. However, I’ve now taught at Glenbard North for 15 years, and I feel qualified to say this: we have some of the best kids anywhere come through the hallowed halls Glenbard North. The kids I have in my classes, for the most part, are absolutely wonderful kids, and I don’t say that lightly. I have taught at four high schools and have come in contact with so many students over the years, but the kids at North are special to me. When people find out that I teach high school, they usually ask me, “How can you stand riding herd on teenagers all day? I’d go crazy!” What they don’t understand is that I have such great kids in my classes year after year, that I honestly feel like I should be paying to teach them. I have more fun in my job than anyone I know, and it’s like that pretty much every day. That’s all due to the great kids at our school. On parent night, I always tell the parents how great I think their kids are, and that’s not just to get them to like me; that’s the absolute truth of the matter. So before I continue with this book, I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all the kids who have ever come through my classes at Glenbard North. I’d put every one of your names in this book if I could. I love you guys.
After completing all my graduate hours, within a year I was able to save enough money for a down payment for a wonderful house with a big back yard for the kids and me. When I left my old high school about 12 years ago, I was making barely enough to pay the bills and take care of my family. Today, thanks to all the graduate coursework I took and my years of teaching experience, my teaching salary has tripled. I recently remarried and moved to an even bigger house, and my life is absolutely wonderful today. How did I do it? I put together my own manual for personal development and daily living that I adhered to day by day, and I am convinced that this is what has put me where I am now. I’d like to share it with you in hopes of helping you weather the storms of life and accomplish all your goals. These are the rules by which I live. Now that I’m in my 40’s, I call them The Old Guy Rules.
Who Gets to be an Old Guy?
We’ve all got some “Old Guy” in us. It grows to gargantuan proportions as we age. Many of the traits that constitute the Old Guy are independent of actual chronological age. When I think of an Old Guy, I think of experience. Someone who has toughed out a number of life’s major obstacles gets to be an Old Guy. I’m also going to include the ladies in here. Ladies, if you’ve been through the wringer, be it at the hands of a boyfriend/husband, if you’re a single parent, or if you’ve just had some hard times in your life, you’re in the club. If you’re overweight, underweight, too short, self-conscious, or just plain underappreciated for any reason, you get to be an Old Guy. We’re kind of like the island of misfit toys who get to fix ourselves, or at least we understand that the perfect toys don’t get to have all the fun.
You also cannot take yourself too seriously if you’re an Old Guy. Mean people suck. Even if you’re 85, if you’re a jerk, you’re out. If you treat other people disrespectfully, you’re out. If you’re the guy who drives on the shoulder and cuts in line in traffic to save a few minutes, you are definitely OUT. You’re not an old guy; you’re an old fart. Go play someplace else. Inconsiderate people suck. If you are one of those, go get some manners, come back, and we’ll talk.
Kids, teens, and recent high-school graduates, you guys have to wait a few years, but look at it this way; you belong to a club from which the Old Guys are permanently excluded, and many of us would give just about anything to go back there, so enjoy it, and let us “old folks” have our fun. I would still suggest you read this book as a reality check and to prepare you for the years ahead. The great thing about our club is that just about everybody will someday be eligible. Besides, this will help you understand your parents and grandparents much better.
Now, Old Guys, that we’ve gotten rid of the kids and the wannabes, let’s get down to brass tacks. You are part of an elite fraternity, kind of like the Marines or the Knights of the Round Table. Life is tough; I don’t care who you are. Even the wealthy have difficulties in their lives (i.e. Donald Trump’s hairstyle), but they’re wealthy because of their difficulties, or, more accurately, because of their reaction to those difficulties. I read a number of years ago when Mr. Trump was having cash-flow problems because he had seemingly overextended himself on his Taj Majal hotel and casino. Everyone was sneering because they thought he was through, and let’s face it, more than a few people rejoiced because his self-promoting style ruffles a few feathers, but he rode it out and proved to everyone that he knew more than they did, which he seems to do more often than not. I respect that. He never seems to be satisfied with his lot in life, and I love how he’s constantly pushing the envelope to extend his empire. I think that’s what life is all about. We’re not ever supposed to be comfortable in terms of being stagnant or complacent. Human beings were meant to struggle, but because we have become a nation of opulence and exorbitance, we often simply choose to quit striving for more. Now I’m not saying to be greedy for the sake of being greedy. However, you do need to spend time every day bettering yourself, even if it means just taking 30 minutes a day to read a book (more on that later). If your pursuits lead to more money than you can spend, please donate to charities, help your family and/or friends, or just do something nice for someone you don’t know personally. Maybe the greatest day in my life was the day I bought my parents a house. Theirs was about to fall down, and they couldn’t afford to do renovations or buy another home, so I stepped in, and now my parents are happier than they’ve been in their entire lives. They thanked me so many times for that house, and still do, but I realized that I should have been thanking them my whole life for what they had done for me. My mom worked two jobs to help put me through college, and my dad didn’t miss a day of work in 11 straight years! He worked at an air conditioning plant, and he taught me what it is to put in a hard day’s work. He also made me realize that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working in an air conditioning plant. I don’t know how he did it for all those years, but the man’s a beast. To prove that, I have a story about him.
A few years ago, my dad’s big toe on his right foot turned blue, purple, and then, eventually, black. He had lost all the circulation to his toe, and the doctors tried everything to get circulation back into the toe. They gave him a blood thinner to that end, but he had an allergic reaction and lost circulation to his foot. It became inevitable that he was going to lose his foot, and he did. Before they amputated, however, they tried one last measure: cutting large incisions on the inside of his legs and taking veins from his legs to replace the ones in his foot, but it was unsuccessful. I was at the hospital with my mom when they brought him back from surgery after his foot had been amputated, and he came in smiling, not allowing anyone to see his pain and disappointment, and he sat there and talked with us the whole evening without so much as flinching. He wouldn’t even allow the nurses to administer pain meds while we were there because he didn’t want us to know he was in pain and needed them. I played four years of college football and saw some pretty nasty injuries, including compound fractures with bones coming through the skin. I’ve seen guys “man up” and play with injuries that would sideline most men. But my dad in that hospital room that night was the toughest guy I ever saw in person. That night, he was a man in every sense of the word. He simply refused to show that he was in pain so we wouldn’t feel bad for him.
My dad always tried to make me tough and would talk about being a man and what that entails, and I think he did a good job. Mostly because of him, I became an All-American football player at
So if you’re not good to your parents or your kids, you don’t get to be in our club either. In fact, we’re better off without you. If you love them, read on, and do so with the knowledge that, even though I don’t know you, fellow Old Guy, I like you already, and you’re in the club.
