I’ve had a lot of time to think the last couple of years.

I don’t mean to imply that I spent the first six decades of my life not thinking. Like everybody else — well, almost everybody — I spent nearly all of my waking hours thinking. I thought about things I was doing, like mopping the floor in the drug store I used to work in, teaching about the Supreme Court to a room full of teenagers with terminal senioritis or convincing my son that an error during a T-ball game didn’t mean he was a total failure as a human being.

What I didn’t have time for was finding a rock in the mountains to sit on and contemplate the important questions of life, like why I’ve been planted here on Earth and whether I have done what I was supposed to do with my life. I didn’t have time to sit for an hour or two and allow a book I had just finished to sink in so I could realize the whole benefit of the author’s words. I didn’t even have time to do what Tevye sang about in “If I Were a Rich Man,” sit in the synagogue and pray.

I have to admit I’m being a bit dishonest — well, a lot dishonest — in that last paragraph. If I had devoted the time I wasted watching television to serious thought, I’d have had plenty of time to think profound thoughts, but then I wouldn’t be able to write this essay.

Now that I’m retired, at least mostly, I have time for profound musings, and I should be able to leave those work-a-day thoughts behind, but I’m finding it hard to break away from them.

Thirty years after I coached my last T-ball game, I still find my mind dwelling on fielding ground balls, and a decade-and-a-half after I graded my last American government final, I still read the newspapers with an eye out for something that will make a useful example in class.

These and other thoughts often fill up the random access memory in my brain, and that can be dangerous, as it was the day I nearly nipped off the end of a finger with a hedge trimmer. Instead of focusing on what I was doing, I was considering the appropriate method of torture for the guy who thought it was a good idea to plant 40 yards of Russian olive along the edge of what would someday be my back yard. The resulting cut was superficial, but it did remind me to pay attention when dealing with sharp tools and wickedly thorny bushes that were making my nose run.

Teaching school was by far the biggest source of the every-day thoughts taking control of my brain. During my career, it was a rare day when I didn’t devote time to teaching classes in my head. In the middle of July, with the next school day over a month away, I’d find my thoughts in a classroom. Even when I slept, dreams of classrooms full of kids invaded my brain. Of course, when I actually was teaching, such thoughts weren’t bad. On the contrary, keeping my job in mind was a desirable way to spend my time. Now, though, it’s sort of ridiculous that it’s still happening.

Unfortunately, books and magazines about history, government, and current affairs are what I read for fun and relaxation, so it’s not surprising that a civics class erupts in my head while I’m enjoying a good book. It doesn’t change even on the rare occasions I read a novel instead of another book about the Constitution.

Then my thoughts drifted toward whether, by suggesting it to a student, I might stretch his or her interest beyond Louis L’Amour or Stephen King. Not that there’s anything wrong with those authors, but I saw my job as stretching the scope of what students were reading, not feeding their addictions to one author or genre of literature.

Occasionally, other facets of teaching took over my brain and I would have a nightmare about a never-ending faculty meeting. A few days ago, I dreamed I was speaking to the local members of the Wyoming Education Association about the organization’s activities in the state, and it turned out that I really was really speaking, and my words roused my wife from a sound sleep. She is used to hearing unintelligible words and phrases from me in my sleep, but this time, I spoke quite clearly, and actually woke myself up and robbed myself of about half an hour of sleep time.

Well, as I said at the beginning, I now have a lot of time to think. All I need now is some self-discipline in directing my thoughts away from rehashing my former career. I plan to spend a lot of time mulling over the books I read to gain greater understanding. I plan to watch the world go by, follow the clouds as they roll by and gaze at the stars. Maybe I’ll just sit in the synagogue and pray, although, synagogues being a bit scarce around here, I’ll settle for an empty church or my living room.

I’ll have to find the delicate balance between letting my mind roam free and directing it away from rehashing my earlier days.

I think it will be fun, and it might even direct my next column.