His teaching reputation finally did him in. Facing termination, the guests at his farewell raised a vessel from the administration decorated with a Greek meander. “Half-empty or half-full?” they asked. “Can’t tell,” he replied, balancing it on his hand. “But it smells like hemlock.” And he slowly drained the cup.

Joel Savishinsky is a retired anthropologist and gerontologist. His Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, won the Gerontological Society of America’s book prize. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and a California Quarterly, Cirque Journal, Passager, Third Wednesday and LIGHT Magazine award winner, his poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in Beyond Words, Devour: Art +Lit Canada, The New York Times, and Windfall. The Poetry Box published his collection Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. He lives in Seattle, helping to raise five grandchildren, and considers himself a recovering academic and unrepentant activist.