It was a conversation I still remember more than forty years later. The principal stopped me mid flight as I headed to my second floor classroom. “Dont cash your pay check,” he said. “There might not be enough money to cover it right now.” That one brief encounter clouded my vision of the future. The work was rewarding in itself, but warm feelings don’t pay the rent.

Finances at the school waxed and waned like the tide and, in spite of the insecurity, I lasted there seven more years. Then, late one summer on the week before school was to begin, things collapsed completely: a major donor pulled out his considerable funds in order to finance his legal woes.

A concerned group of parents managed to scrabble together a leaner version of the school a week later. A new Board was formed and a fraction of the staff was brought back. I was rehired at a much deflated salary and I determined that by next Fall I would be working somewhere else.

This chronic job insecurity played havoc with my mental health and prevented me from seeing further ahead than the next paycheck. This was no way to live.