Paul.T. Wilson:
CLASS OF 1960
St. Patrick SchoolClass of 1960
Niagara falls, ON
Richmond Hill High SchoolClass of 1965
Richmond hill, ON
Bayview Secondary SchoolClass of 1965
Richmond hill, ON
Blessed Sacrament SchoolClass of 1961
New rochelle, NY
St. Mary Immaculate SchoolClass of 1960
Richmond hill, ON
Paul.T.'s Story
Life at the present time:
Nice house (somewhat cluttered with academic stuff), significantly redone over the last few years.
My wife, Allison Baer, is working at the U of Findlay 45 miles S of Toledo, and I have to say that the commuting is very little fun; I don't mind driving at all, in fact I like it. But . . . the pressure of being divided between two households is proving difficult. So I will be retiring as of August 31, 2013 and moving to Ohio to join her.
My 19 yr old daughter is finishing her second year at Michigan State; seems to be doing well.
I'm currently Assoc Prof of Reading/Literacy Studies, Western Michigan U, Kalamazoo, MI, where I came in 1986. I teach preservice and inservice teachers how to teach reading and writing.
I started working in the WMU-AAUP, the Faculty Union, in 1996, and got very involved in 2004 when I ran for election. I've served as VP (2005), President (2006-2010), and Contract Administrator & Chief Negotiator (2 differennt roles) 2011-now.
I would say that right now is one of the most interesting periods of my life.
School:
I always liked school; things came naturally to me and although I did a lot of work (iirc, I did my homework every single day all the way through high school), most of it never felt like work. It came naturally, like breathing, something to do because there was time to be filled, and it was just a natural part of becoming the way I was supposed to be. As long as I felt like I was becoming something new, it was fine with me to keep on with it. My one disappointment has been with math. I loved math all the way through high school; there was only one problem all the way through school, in 10th grade geometry, that I had difficulty with; I used to dream solutions to math problems and wake up in the middle of the night knowing how to do them. And yet I never took any math in college. Finally in grad school, 12 years after I finished high school, I started studying statistics, but I still regret all those lost years when I wasn't really completely myself. I was, however, sustained by reading, and by learning long after it comes to most guys, how to play sports and get better at them.
So it was, and remains, interesting to me to read about new things, to discover people who have thought more deeply about things than I have, to find ways - whether verbal and visual...Expand for more
,or abstract & symbolic - to represent what we know, and to experience that rush of realization and creativity while expressing it. I like that sweet torture of coming to grips with a problem, of putting up with the somewhat anxious mental buzz of not yet having the solution, of sticking with it (sometimes my brain is unable to let go despite myself) and seeing it through to the end, and then that sense of relief and readiness for more after it's all done.
School (K-12), then college, and continuing with life in university communities since then, were just particularly convenient places where these kinds of things -- the life of the mind is the apt cliche -- could happen often enough. I drifted through a lot of other things just passing time with them so that I could continue to enjoy life inside my head.
There have been times when I was sort of normal, & I may be more so today. I liked playing softball, hockey, and especially basketball, football, tennis, swimming and golf. I love to watch the arc of the ball through the air, from bat to glove or out into the field, or quarterback to receiver, because it has always been quite absorbing to me: The throw and the catch are almost mythically symbolic of connection and, often, cooperation . . . . of ascending completely into that all-absorbing present moment. In golf, that slow curling of the ball toward the cup, from whatever distance, intrigued me; the click-click-click sound of the ball dropping and settling into the hole is so satisfying that I would never take a gimme; I always have to putt out.
I loved music, theater and dancing - church choir, playing in the high school band for assemblies and talent shows, singing along with pop radio (I knew the words to every song on the radio, just like my daughter does today), Broadway, Texaco's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, Square Dance Club. And in the semi-darkness of high school dances, that sweetly anxious process of becoming aware of gender differences through the pattern and contact of the dance, with lots of kids not really admitting what they were feeling and realizing.
I like a life of service, imagination, cooperation, and collegiality. What could be better?
Oh, and walking the dog, which is where I'm going right now; nothing like being admired solely for being affectionate!.
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