ALL OVER AGAIN?
YIKES!!!!!!
I'm 60 years old and if I had to start over I'd be, like, what,
90?? before I could get out. ha ha.
Are we speaking science fiction stuff, like turning back the
hands of time?
'Back to the 1970s'?
Oh yeah, there I am, that young thing in the mini skirt and
platform heels... (some things never change--the young things are
wearing my old clothes in 2009)
So I get to go back in time, and start over in 1971, knowing what
I know now?
Well, I'd do a couple things a little differently under those
circumstances....
I'd take the fast track to my Bachelors, and avoided the college
transfers, and then would have finished a year or two sooner.
That would have made it easier to get a job teaching, as there
were more jobs available a couple years BEFORE I actually
graduated....
Of course that would have meant that I'd have to work 34 years
instead of 32 before reaching age 55, which was the earliest
eligibility to retire here....
So I still could have retired in 2004, but with two more years of
service, and a slightly larger pension check...
Now this only applies if those two extra years are 1970 and
1971, 'cause things were better back then.

EXCEPT THE PAY!!!
Even considering that gas was 32c a gallon, and a nice new car
could be had for $3K, teachers hereabouts were only making about
$6-8K annual salary. I remember we hit $10K around the late
1970s...felt rich, but only by comparison to how poor we felt
before that!
After taxes, contributions to pension, union dues, etc you were
lucky if you had $10 a month to start a savings plan. But that
$10 went into classroom supplies that were not provided...

And we certainly did not eat as well, lots of generic mac and
cheese dinners when the end of the month neared....(ok, not THAT
many, actually we went home to Mom's house to get a free meal
couple times a week cause the money never lasted the whole
month...)
Do my friends whom I've mourned get to go back in time with me?
Do I get to be a jr size 7 again?
Can I wear all the pretty and sexy 4 inch heels without my feet
screaming?
Can I dance all night without needing three days to recuperate?
Will I have my same good HMO or have to go back to the old
medical coverage that didn't pay for anything preventive, didn't
pay for anything at all pretty much until you landed in the
hospital...
Yeah, teaching was so much more enjoyable up until about 1990.
Then it got really awful by around 1999.
Hmmmm....
Would I go back and do it again? For $7500 a year, or $75000 a
year?
NO WAY, I'm in the BEST next phase of life now, even if I have to
wear 'sensible shoes'.
I'm glad enough that I made the choice to teach (not that women
had that many choices back in the day...), there were good times
and bad, and the pension plan that took most of my grocery money
out of my pay back then, provides nicely for me now. (Thank you
PSERS for taking care of over 100K of my earnings for me...)
If I had to just be miraculously made young again, and start
teaching in 2009,
NO WAY
NO WAY
NO WAY.
I'd just marry that guy who I turned down, the one who didn't
want me to work outside the home at all after we were married...
:)

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