Weirdly strange and strangely weird

TPP is suffering from some disconcerting feelings. Usually things just sort of happen and TPP tries to just take them in stride, but nonetheless today feels strangely weird.  Yesterday, Friday, was the last class day of the semester, another fine semester and academic year shot to hell, and rather than just a regular class (Friday 1 pm) TPP took his students to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden, always pleasant and educational thing to do. The seniors also enjoyed having a non-traditional last day to their college career, so a nice symmetrical situation. The weirdness arises because this was TPP's, actually his academic counterpart's, last class ever because he is retiring later this year. Of course the summer will be pretty much the same as always, but it feels quite strange to suddenly realize that this is the terminus of teaching even though the botanical career is not over by any means, and without question TPP, the blogger, is just getting started. So there it is. Somehow the semester and a very long teaching career (over 40 years), at least in terms of actually being in the classroom with students, has ended, and this proves to be sort of surprising in its abruptness in spite of the fact that this was not a sudden or last minute decision. TPP has plans to do something quite different this coming August, something to help his adjustment to not starting another academic year, but until then this will remain something for readers to wonder about. But somehow this actually happened; this is the end (1970), which is actually when it began.   

Youth of the Sixties meets the Rapture

So the rapture is eminent. Sure. But as a youth of the sixties, back then you might have convinced me. Let's see the Phactor helped people build bomb shelters in their basements in the early sixties; my very pragmatic father said, "If they start throwing H-bombs around, it won't matter." Lost friends to drugs. Lost friends in the race riots and voter registration violence. Cities burned and it was ugly. And then we moved right straight on to Vietnam. Lost friends there too. So you needed cheerful tunes to stay upbeat. Do you hear it? Wait, my old fashioned amp and those 25 year old speakers still have lots of muscle and can be cranked up quite a bit more. Do you hear it now? The whole neighborhood says, ah, yes, the Doors, This is the end. And yes, the Phactors saw them live in the fall of 1966, and we both lived to tell the tale. It wasn't the end, and it won't be tomorrow either, but damn those tunes take me back.