WHEN THEY STRIP YOU OF YOUR IDENTITY

Years ago—1997 to be exact—I sat in a conference room listening to prospective hirers explain why they’d like to teach in a prison. Most answers crapped-out in fantasyland, that so-called place where new educators talk about changing the world one person at a time; I’d get a little bored with the rhetoric almost as much as the flowery objectives listed on a majority of the resumes. But I do remember one middle-aged man who seemed perturbed whenever someone on the interview panel lobbed a philosophical or hypothetical question his way. He refused to sell himself, his curt, reality-based answers eliciting moments of awkward silence.

We waited for elaboration. We got nothing.

For whatever reason, I interpreted his mannerisms as loud, boisterous messages of “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

I didn’t know who he was. Not until late 2011. He did most of his “time,” his 8-hour increments, at Mound Correctional Facility until the politicians moth-balled the place. Then, at the age of 77, he transferred to my institution and we became coworkers. He had heard about my unfortunate turn of events and offered a few words of encouragement. “Life is beautiful,” he told me, “as long as you keep moving forward.” He also gave me some stamps; his way of saying I should start a new hobby.

On the day he retired, I realized that he had had a large impact on many. He was a gentle but firm soul. After he received his certificate for years of service, after we ate his layered kosher cake and applauded his good-bye speech, that moment of awkward silence crept back. I took the initiative, I stood up from the conference table, I tossed my paper-plate in the garbage, I said, “Well … I guess I’ll see you at the time-clock.”

He could’ve told me he didn’t have to punch out, instead he said, “I can’t punch out.” Management had taken his identification badge earlier in the day. His retirement had already begun. No fanfare, just as he'd wanted it.

Here’s a famous poem he gave me one day to cheer me up:

“If” by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

     But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

     Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

     If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

     And treat those two impostors just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken,

      Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken

     And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

     And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

     To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

     Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

     Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

     If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

     And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!