(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . 80 [1] ['Greg Dworkin', 'Belinda Ridgewood'] Date: 2026-05-23 That of course is just a number, not a determination necessarily of anything significant. But today, May 23, it is an indication of significance, as I now enter my 9th decade of my journeys around the Sun. I was born on this day in 1946, which is the same year of the births of 3 of the last 4 Presidents (excluding only Obama), even as I am older than all of them (the orange blob by only 3 weeks). Teaching as I currently do middle schoolers, they have no real sense of time even of the expanse of my life. This week I was asked if I were alive during the First World War! As is my wont, and as today is not a school day, where I would leave for the day at 6 AM, I am going to reflect a bit on my 8 decades. I think as a senior, both in terms of chronological age and as a VERY LONG TIME MEMBER of this site (having first visited it in 2003 while in NH for Howard Dean), I am entitled to do so, although of course there is no guarantee that this posting will get much traffic. So read on at your own discretion, and perhaps peril??? Looking back, I would not claim that I have led a life of significance, but I’d like to believe it is one of value, even though it took me more than half my life to finally find a purpose that meant something to me. I have wandered through several different careers (although I have now been teacher since 1995), moved residences far too often until relatively late in life although we lived in the same house in Arlington VA for 39 years, and our now in our final home), had too many personal relationships as I was without focus (and yet have been with Leaves on the Current since September 1974, and in our marriage since December 1985). And yes, in a somewhat undetermined search for meaning I have wandered through multiple forms of religious identification (3 branches of Judaism, Episcopal, Orthodox Christian, Society of Friends even while getting a masters from a Catholic Seminary and done Buddhist Walking Meditation) although I have now identified as a Quaker for more than two decades. I have encountered many who were of significance, some very briefly, for example, being patted on the head by Babe Ruth when I was not yet two shortly before he died, or one brief conversation with Alexander Kerensky in a restaurant. Some were people whom I knew through school or college: my high school classmates included Rick Nicita, who as Al Pacino’s agent talked him into taking the part that won him his Oscar, and Carla Maxwell, an outstanding figure in modern dance, and Tom Hauser, who has written numerous books including the one used as the basis for the movie Missing, as well as a well-received biography of Muhammed Ali; from Haverfod College it includes several folks who have been college presidents like Hunter Rawlings of Iowa and Cornell U, David Fraser of Swarthmore, several presidents of Haverford; it has included people in theater like Ken Ludwig or in government like his brother Eugene; Others I have gotten to know through politics and my previous strong activity in education policy: these have included the likes of Tom Vilsack, Raul Grijalva, Carolyn McCarthy, Jared Polis, Alcee Hastings, Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier, Linda Darling-Hammond, Lily Eskelson, and many more. I am not saying I was close friends with all of these, but with some I have been. With others I have perhaps had some influence, sufficient that they would listen to me on topics I knew something about (although I am not claiming that what I would offer would necessarily influence them). I have been fortunate enough to write not just here but for a blog for the New York Times, for Education Week /Teacher, as a cited source for Jau\y Mathews of the Washington Post, etc. I have been offered jobs in politics and government by significant folks (which I declined, because as Clint Eastwood says as Dirty Harry in “Magnum Force”, “A man’s gotta to know his limitations” – just because I can do something and to it well does not mean I SHOULD do it. That is something I try to impart to my students. My father once told me that I would probably never be rich, because I had too much sympathy for the underdog. I can say with some pride and satisfaction that he was right, because I have often stood on principle on behalf of others, even as it might come at some cost to myself. I try to abide by my word and my commitments – that led to turning down a significant job offer from Apple when its stock was at less thaa dollar (you can easily do the math to see the financial consequences of that decision). In other cases i chose not to accept opprortunities that had I taken my life would have been very different. Here I think of three early in my life. While an enlisted Marine, I was offered an appointment to Annapolis which I declined because the rules required one to spend a year at the Naval Academy Prep School and I had two years in college under my belt (although I am pretty sure I would have been more than an outlier in a service academy); in New York, I tested so well that one now defunct Wall Street firm wanted to put me into their elite college graduate training program but were only willing to pay me as a high school graduate, which I thought was unfair; I was accepted to Peace Corps to serve in the Philippines but declined the appointment because I had just started a job and signed a lease on an apartment in NYC – this is one I might regret except had I taken it UI never would have met Leaves and my life would be very much poorer in many ways. As I look back reflecting on things I have done, people I have known, choices I have made, there are some that still carry weight with me, although not always as others might think. From my time through high school in Mamaroneck NY, two people stand out. The first would be my AP US History teacher Thomas Rock, who was the first person to find a way to make clear to me my responsibility to live up to my talent, however I would choose to use it. This is something that has influenced me not only through my 3 decades of classroom teaching, but as a supervisor in the work I did in computers forboth private firms and in local government, as well as in positions of leadership I have held in religious affairs and community associations. The seconde was my final piano teacher before I went to college. the late Joseph Block, who at Julliard was known as the man with the golden ears, and was himself a concert pianist. At my final lesson with him, I played the First Partita by J. S Bach, and at the end he sat in silence for more than a minute, then said to me “within the limits of your technique, you play Bach as well as anyone I have ever heard.” While a strong compliment, it was very much of a critique but one which gave me space to reflect; it challenged me to think what I could have done were willing to be disciplined about developing my technique. At Haverford I was fortunate to develop strong relationships with several professors, in part because I attended three times over 10 years before I graduated. From John Davison I learned how to motivated even a student not strong in the content area by finding something to praise before offering suggestions on how to improve. From William Heartt Reese I learned about how to challenge but then inspire peoploe who were not necessarily skilled musically to give strong performances, something that carried over not only to my leading church choirs full of amateurs, but doing high school musical theater and coaching (usually the less skilled players in soccer (that also being influenced by having learned about soccer under an outstanding hall of fame coach named Jimmy Mills). And then there is Roger Lane, now retired and living about 2 miles away, who taught me how to use humor to lessen the pressure of intense academic work. Roger has been a friend for more than 60 years, in part because when I came back to Haverford to finish my degree at age 25 we were both between marriages and actually double dated at one point, but also because by then I was more of an adult and able to have an adult friendship because I was no longer a history major (Roger won the Bancroft Prize as an historian) but a Music Major. I am a very much flawed person who has made many mistakes in my life, and I know will make more as my life continues to wind down. Students now are very different from when I started teaching full time more than 30 years ago, and I have had to make adjustments I was not expecting. And yet I do not want to give up that work, because I know I can make a difference at least for some of those I teach, even now. I see that in the almost 200 of my former students (that I know about) who have themselves at least for a while been k-12 teachers, and some of the others with whom I have stayed in contact as they have found the paths on which they want to travel. I have clearly been blessed by some of my relationships. Let me only reflect on two. I called him Geronda. His monastic name was Aimilianos and he was the abbot of Simona Petra on Mount Athos in Greece. For some strange reason when I met him in 1981he saw something in me I did not see in myself. He became my spiritual father for about a decade. At a time in my life where I was very unsure of my direction he helped me find focus in a way I never expected. My understanding is that he is very likely to be canonized (declared a saint) by the Greek Orthodox Church. But it is the personal level, the gentleness in how he guided byt inspired, which I also was in the female monastic community he had inspired to be developed and which was so close to his heart. By the way, when I visited it to meet with him, I emember going into the church for services and there were two “tame” deer that would come in during the services! And finally, and most important, there is Leaves on the Current. I first saw her when she was staying with a faculty couple at Haverford College and came into a music class with the wife of one of my professors (she still has a hard time accepting that I saw her then – although I hve described in detail where she was sitting and what she was wearing). Later, my transition into the Episcopal Church was in part because that professor introduced me to her father. Her younger sister and family friends noted that I was watching her at church although we had almost no direct contact. Without going through all of the history, our relationship started in 1974 when we had a chance encounter at the Bryn Mawr PA train station. I became intrigued even more so, and with permission of her parents we began dating, as he was taking a year off between high school and Harvard. She was 17, a year ahead of herself (as I had been in high school). I was 28. And here we are still together after more than 50 years. It took a while for us to get married. She had 4 years at Harvard, 3 years on a Marshall Fellowship from the British Government at University College Oxford. While the relationship started while we were both Episcopalians, we both became Orthodox Christians, which she still is while I have moved on first through multiple levels of Judaism and then to the Quakers, where I still am after more than two decades. We can both be difficult people, although I am more so. And yet the love and the care for one another has sustained us both. Geronda, Father Aimilianos, once told me that I could be a very good monk (something I seriously considered as both an Episcopalian and an Orthodox) my entire life had been a preparation to be married, to go back to America and marry Leaves. He also told me that while I have a sensitive soul she has a more sensitive soul and I should defer to her. When I recounted that to her, she was amazed, and wanted to understand how never having met her he could know that. That was in 1983, and it took until December 29, 1985 until we finally got married. My wife is brilliant – Summa and Junior Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, valedictorian of her class at Shipley School, winning an award for the best dissertation in American Studies in the US while doing doctoral work at George Washington, etc. But that pales when compared with her heart. She is the eldest of five, very close to siblings, and a loving aunt to nieces and nephews. She maintains incredibly close friendships with people from high school and college and graduate school. She has built a relationship with a church community in NJ where one of her sisters liveseven before we decided to move to now where we live (and in part we are here because of that). She is the one who prodded me about leaving computers and becoming a teacher. She has changed some of her plans over out rime together to enable me to do that. We moved to the DC area because that is where she wanted to be. We moved back to this area because she wanted to be closer to her family. We are in a Continuing Care Retirement Community because that is what she wanted. We have both had health issues, hers more serious than mine. More than half a century together. At times the relationship has had its issues, and yet still we persist, because it has been built upon a love for and respect for one another. I do not regret some chances foregone because my life would be far less rich without Leaves. So here I am, in the first day of my 9th decade. I have quite possibly written far too much to be of interest to the vast majority of people here. And this is a political blog, so yoy may wonder why I have posted this. Let me try to explain. While I can see tactical and strategic implications of participation politically, for me as far as I can remember politics has been inextricably intertwined with moral, spiritual (beyond the mere religious affiliation or lack thereof), and ethical dimension. In short how do those dimensions intersect with and influence our political actions and speech? At one college reunion, a classmate (Fred) told me he was not going to write the great American novel, he would just recount my life to that point (which was 38 years ago), even though I would not say it was that interesting to others then nor would it be so now. In a few weeks I will be seeing many who might read this at Netroot Nation in Philadelphia. This will be the first time I have attended since I was a presenter in 2012 in Providence. Given my age it could well be the last time I attend. I have imposed my thoughts on various topics on this community for more than two decades. As I reflect back on my life, perhaps those reflections can help give some sense of what drives and shapes me. If you have persisted through this deluge of words and thoughts, I thank you. I might offer this observation: taking time to reflect should be a regular part of one’s life. One never know what one might come to understand: about oneself, about others, about the world in which we live. And so I close as I so often have in the past, a la the Hebrew greeting/salutation which can serve as both greeting and goodby. In Hebrew, Shalom. In English: PEACE. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/23/800043665/community/80/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/