You Look Like a College Professor
8/3/26
“You look like a college professor. Are you a college professor?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You look very smart,” he said, appraising me while I felt self-conscious about what I might have been doing that made me appear smart. “Maybe you should be a college professor.”
Now, who starts a conversation like that with someone they hardly know? I mean, we’re not exactly strangers, but we only recognize each other because he’s the security guy at my doctor’s office and we say hello every three months when I go for my quarterly checkup. I tend to schedule for 8:00 like I’m still going to work, and he’s been in the lobby every time when I get there. It’s a bland four-story, brown glass professional building with no apparent architectural front near the Veteran’s Administration in Phoenix. I get the impression that when I pull in he’s just completed his morning rounds and returned to the entrance to greet his tenants as they arrive. Maybe he schmoozes them to get cookies at the holidays. Maybe he’s lonely and just likes to say good morning to people.
He always asks me who I’m there to see. I give him my doctor’s name, and he points to the suite. I ask for the code to the men’s room which I never remember from the last time I was there, but they probably change it anyway, and that’s it, that’s the extent of our relationship. But for some reason he was chattier than usual today, and I guess I was too, because I found myself answering him, “I’ve always wanted to be a college professor.”
“Well, maybe you should be.”
“It’s on my list. I think I’d be good at it.”
“See?” He was clearly pleased that I agreed with him, as if he had planned it all out ahead of time.
I thought it over. “You think?”
“College. This is what I’m saying.” He was definite.
I consented. “College.”
Get Chris Cerrato’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
He nodded at me. That settled it.
I said, “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling, and we might have shaken hands on it, but he turned to open the door for a woman carrying two bags and a latte.
“Good morning,” he said to her, so I figured I was dismissed.
He’s usually not around when I leave, and he wasn’t that day either. He must have an office near the lobby. Could be we’re getting to know each other — he obviously recognizes me. I’m guessing he’s around my age.
I’ve become aware that the older I get, the less I know how I look to the rest of the world. I still feel like I’m in my forties, so when I see other people, especially men, who are in their sixties, I don’t see myself as being their age. I’m a baby boomer, for heaven’s sake, so I’m not kidding myself that I’m still young but some guys actually look elderly. Of course it’s quite likely that I appear as mature to them as they do to me and even more likely that they don’t care.
Being a senior citizen is relative. I could have moved to Sun City when I turned 50, the same year AARP was after me to join. I didn’t go to Sun City, but I eventually said yes to AARP because we got a discount on our home security system by enrolling while the installer was at our house. He coached me through it. He’d asked me what my AARP number was, and when I confessed that I wasn’t a member it never occurred to him that I wouldn’t be old enough, even though I was, just that I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The rate was several hundred dollars less than the standard fee so that day I felt good about being 50. I know some restaurants offer a senior discount at 55 but I won’t admit to it. I was able to start collecting Social Security at 62 but have to wait until 65 for Medicare. I think I’ll be comfortable with referring to myself as a senior citizen when I turn 70, but then again, I may not be all that forthcoming when it actually arrives.
Teaching. Could I be as old as I am now and still be a teacher? I’d wanted to be one since I was a little kid, mainly because my mom taught second grade, and I loved to write on chalkboards and decorate bulletin boards. So when I got my master’s degree a little over a decade ago I saw myself becoming an English professor at one of the community colleges, because I think I’m special in that mentoring sort of way. I assumed that a lot of students would enroll in my class of their own volition since you have to take English when you go to high school, but in college it’s either a choice or a prerequisite — so they’d be motivated one way or another. I’d recently turned 50 then so I figured I’d be far enough away in age from them that they’d respect me like an uncle or a coach, but I wouldn’t be so old that they’d look at me like somebody’s grandfather fumbling with a damn laptop.
I’d applied for an adjunct position twice with the community college system at that time, flush with my advanced degree, but never got called for an interview. In retrospect, I suppose I could have applied a third time, but when I wasn’t acknowledged after my second shot at it, I interpreted it as a sign from the universe to seek elsewhere. Then I got promoted at work to a better position making more money, which kind of altered my career trajectory, so teaching went on the back burner until I finally retired a few years ago. One of the first things I did was get my K-12 substitute teaching certificate.
My intentions involved working with public school kids as the cool sub who doesn’t stress them out, and can answer questions they wouldn’t ask their regular teachers. I held off getting a position until coronavirus restrictions got lifted, but by the time we were all vaccinated I’d lost my motivation to work in a classroom. Some of my fellow retirees who’d tried subbing advised against it, complaining about kids with runny noses, cell phones, and parents. Another part of me just didn’t want to chase down friends and former associates to write letters of recommendation for me, which I guess explains a lot more about me than about them.
And the whole college professor thing? I actually still find it appealing. I’d like to teach grammar to grownups and help them with spelling and punctuation. I suspect many adults have become so reliant on their phones, tablets, and laptops filling in linguistic blanks that basic writing knowledge isn’t regarded as being necessary or desirable. Reading articles these days I honestly don’t know if authors are making deliberate writing choices, purposely playing with punctuation, or if they actually don’t know, for example, the difference between “their,” “there,” and “they’re.”
I’m also afraid that now I actually am old enough to be a college student’s grandfather, and there are some embarrassing days I fumble on my laptop.
So after talking with my friend the security guard at my physician’s office, I’m not going to rule the community college thing out, and I might even check out the job postings. I’m not promising anything, mind you. Morning classes might be a stretch. An 8:00 quarterly visit to my doctor’s office is one thing but as a regular gig, I wonder. Clearly there’s not as many trips around the sun ahead of me before I die as there used to be, and that knowledge stares me in my elderly face every time I look in a mirror. So why not? I’d get to say what I mean and take more chances than when I was a younger man. I actually know what I know and enjoy sharing my point of view with anybody who’s interested. Just go ahead and strike up a conversation with me. I’ve got all day.
