Retirement (actually just leaving one place of employment for another) seemed to be far away and then RUSH upon me! All of a sudden there was so much to do!! Finishing classes, grades, processing paperwork, trying to get retirement savings in place, and saying good-bye to so many friends. I even had to dump years of lectures, papers, even a paper copy of my dissertation and all the research articles supporting it. Don't worry, I have electronic copy of almost all of them!
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| My Retirement Luncheon |
I was so thankful for my wonderful colleagues at the College and at Shands University Hospital (Shands Health System at Gainesville) for the fantastic good-byes. It was sad to leave.
The most wonderful result was NO WORK OVER THE HOLIDAYS, preparing for the next semester. I think that was the first time in more than 20 years! So what a relaxing Christmas this year!June 5, 2014 - Joel's last day at Littlewood Elementary School
Oh! I wish I had pictures and audio to describe the wonderful send-off Littlewood gave Joel! They had a catered lunch and a time of sharing their thoughts about Joel! It was a blessing. Joel and all the other teachers and staff had a hard time saying "good-bye." What was so unusual was that Joel was able to constantly give testimony to his Christian faith at a public school! Praise God!
