Get a job, travel the world, retire and return to college at The University of Memphis. That may not be the to-do list of most students, but for Dr. Shed Caffey and his wife Jane, it's life.
Three days a week, Caffey and his wife are just regular students in Professor Kim Magowan's English 3322.
Well, regular students in so far as they arrive to class early, sit in the front row and inquire whether their peers wrote their papers, read chapters or studied for the day's lesson.
The Caffeys, though, aren't your regular students.
Dr. Caffey is 75, while Mrs. Caffey is 69.
Fifty years since he graduated from Emory Medical School and ten years since retirement from private pediatric practice in Memphis, Caffey may have students wondering why he'd return to school. Why, after visiting the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and taking a 23-day trip around the world in 1987, would anyone return to school?
"We're trying to keep the cobwebs out of the brain," Caffey said. "When you take on pre-med, you don't get to take a lot of different courses, like history."
Together, the Caffeys said they've taken five history classes in the last three years at The U of M. This semester marks their first non-history class.
But there is some history in this class for the retired pediatrician. He shares the class with two former patients. Grown and with a child of her own, former patient and current classmate Tressie Wallace said, "Dr. Caffey has lots of babies here."
"It makes you think. It's really neat to see how they come to class to learn," said Summer Holbrook, one of the Caffeys' classmates.
For 25 years, Caffey was an evaluating doctor for the U of M football team. Now, along with English papers, Caffey said he enjoys writing -- about 500 personal letters a year.
"Handwritten," he said. "That's sort of my personal hobby."
Mrs. Caffey, on the other hand, like most students, said she keeps in touch with her cell phone.
However, both share extra-curricular activities ranging form tennis and church work to serving on various boards of directors. Walking three miles a day is also on the Caffeys' daily routine.
Magowan said not only are the Caffeys good role models for students, but for her as well.
"I hope I'm that interested when I'm 75," she said.
The couple has lived in the same house for 41 years and has three children, and while some at their age are dwelling on that, the Caffeys said they're not.
The Caffeys said what they enjoy most about school is the association with young people and the intellectual stimulation of it.
For Caffy a native Mississippian, who counts spending one year training at a children's hospital in London as one of his most interesting life experiences, arriving early three days a week to take a course for no credit may seem absurd. For people who have done a little of everything, the only logical question is -- what next?
"Well, we'll probably take classes as long as the marbles hold," Caffey said. "Our next course is going to be Shakespeare."
