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Eight Weeks

Today, it has been eight weeks since my beautiful, beloved, kind mother has passed away. It is something I think about and relive every day.

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My posts have been limited this last two weeks as I have been unfortunately required to be on JURY DUTY. Please do not get me wrong... jury service is a vital and important part of being a community citizen. But dammit, to schedule a PROFESSOR to serve jury duty during the last two weeks of the semester is rude and ludicrous. Not only that, this is the THIRD time our county has seen fit to schedule me in this manner in the last decade. I have written letters explaining the situation until I have writers cramp to no avail... the powers that be always deny my request.

What is my request you may ask? It is NOT to be excused from jury service... it is to have my service moved to July or August WHEN I AM NOT TEACHING. I do not know what is so damn hard or unreasonable about that request. The courts are open and trials are on-going.

Because they have seen fit to schedule me in this manner, here is what my life has been like:

1. I call the appointment line the evening before service to see if I am to report to the courthouse.

2. The appointment line says the services of my group are needed but are on STANDBY and that I need to call at 11 am the next day to see if I should report in the afternoon.

3. Therefore, because I do not know what the hell I will be doing the next day, I have to write up in the late evening, paper copies of notes, illustrations, review questions, worksheets, etc for the class I *MIGHT* have to miss the next day.

4. The next day, I do some of my teaching responsibilities, then call in at 11am. On days when my group is then told.... YOUR SERVICES ARE NOT NEEDED TODAY, I go and teach the rest of my class normally... and all the damn work I did the evening before is worthless and shot to hell. Or.... on other days, when my group is then told.... YOUR SERVICES ARE NEEDED... I race off to get to the courthouse by 1pm, the designated start time. In order to get there, I have to cut one of my classes in half... and I pass out all the worksheets, notes and other nonsense (that I normally do not use) to give the students some way to keep up with what the NEED to learn.

5. After arriving at 1pm, I sit around while all the legal people putz around doing close to nothing.

6. Then, usually because of delays in some trial or other, we are dismissed having done not a damn thing, and are excused. If we are excused early enough, I can race back to the University to teach a late afternoon class, or if it is too late, I have a colleague who is willing to pass out that classes' worksheets, notes and other nonsense (that I normally do not use but again had to prepare the night before).

7. Then I go home, and await to make my night phone call to see if I am to report the next day (usually told again that I am on standby).

"Tough!" you say? Well, at one level I can agree with you. But keep in mind that most folks who serve on jury duty simply have another person work for them and therefore it is not overly inconvenient (another exception though... the self-employed have a helluva time too).

But, tell me how I am supposed to find a substitute to teach a senior level neurobiology course or a senior level endocrinology course, or a graduate course in research methods? I can tell you there isn't anyone else around for at least 75 miles from here could teach those... it is the reason I was hired... to bring that information to this region. I could perhaps just cancel all my classes, but why should my ~150 students be so disrupted? Why should they lose out on information they paid to learn?!? And, why should I have to be so overworked and burdened in this process when there is an EASY VIABLE solution that they are too damn stubborn to allow?

AGAIN, DO NOT GET ME WRONG... I believe in the jury system and and I feel it is IMPORTANT to serve. But why the hell cannot they understand that my job is rather specialized and substitutes are not possible and therefore I need to move my service to a time when I AM NOT TEACHING?!?!?!?! Seems simple. BUT NO, IT IS NOT TO THEM.

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We were dismissed from jury service yesterday at 3pm and since yesterday afternoon I did not have a class to return to, I then drove to my mother's grave. I brought a single red rose to the grave with me. It was a horribly rainy day. The rain was driving down very hard (which fit my mood, I guess), and it was in the low 50s in terms of temperature. I went out to the grave and with my snap brimmed cap on to shunt the rain, I began to talk to my mother.

I spoke of my sadness, of my fear, of my missing her. I spoke of my shame in myself. I spoke of breaking my Lenten Vow. I spoke of how I wish I had been better and stronger and more valuable for her. I spoke of how empty things seem. I spoke of how I hoped she was in Heaven and was with all my other loved ones who have died... my wonderful father, Aunt A, Uncle C, Uncle K, E (B), R, P, Aunt E, Uncle A, Uncle H, Aunt C, my grandparents, and her grandmother, and all the others who my mother cherished. I stood there and talked for roughly half an hour in the driving rain, crying and sobbing as I talked. Finally, I laid the single rose I had been holding upon her grave. Being so fresh, the mound of soil was still prominent and there was no grass growing upon the dirt, below which her casket and her corporal body lay. I then got into my vehicle and drove home.

That in a nutshell has been what has happened since I last wrote.

PipeTobacco