Mr. Mel begins second retirement

Mel Lindsey, owner of the Giant Step Learning Center in Costa Mesa,

recently sold the school in an effort to slow down and officially

retire.

Lindsey, 78, retired from the Long Beach School District 19 years

ago. He and his wife then bought the center, which at that time

consisted of about five students, a sandbox and a couple toys.

It has since become a preschool and kindergarten facility for

children ages 2 through 6. There are now a slew of wheel toys,

playhouses and a large outdoor play area, with tire swings and

basketball hoops.

“Mr. Mel,” as the children call him, helped raise his

granddaughter, Jenna, at the center and has many fond memories of the

center’s evolution. Although he sold the center a couple weeks ago to

two sisters, he will teach there as a volunteer until Monday, and

even then, he plans to visit at least once a week.

The Daily Pilot’s Lindsay Sandham recently surprised “Mr. Mel” at

Giant Step to hear about some of his memories and his plans for

retirement.

I understand this visit was a surprise to you.

I’ve been here for 19 years and all of a sudden, when you get

toward the end, a lot of things happen that you’re not really ready

for. They had a surprise retirement [party] for me on Friday ... I

retired 19 years ago from the school district and then we came here.

I really can’t get used to the idea of retiring again because this

has sort of been my recreation.

So, you recently sold the school?

Yeah, we sold it to Reema and Leena. The two girls decided they

wanted to get into working in child development. Leena is a teacher

and Reema has two children, so they’re going to operate the school.

Do you feel pretty comfortable that the people you’ve sold it to

are going to keep it more or less the same?

Oh yeah. Well, they want to keep it the same, and that’s the part

that brought us a lot of joy. It’s a good program and it’s a good

facility because it offers children a real wide range of activity. We

were afraid that somebody else would come in and make it into some

other kind of a program.... This program offers some opportunities

that children don’t get other times.

When you acquired the center 19 years ago, you said there wasn’t

much to it. What did you do to bring the school to where it is today?

We just started adding. We added a lot of wheel toys. We have

almost 40 wheel toys. We got a lot of them at garage sales and

surplus equipment, and I also build a lot of the things that are out

here. Our granddaughter was here and some of the things, like the

little playhouse in the front, are things that our granddaughter had

when she was little.

They gave you an apple award at your retirement party last Friday.

It’s a crystal glass apple.

We try to work with the children as far as their ability to do

things and handle situations. So I’ve used the expression with the

children, “You can handle it.” That means they’re able to gain

control over their emotions. We get a lot of feedback saying the

children can handle a lot of situations.

The reason that this came up is on my cake, it just said,

“Congratulations on your retirement, you can handle it.”

Are you still going to visit?

Well, we have kindergartners. I’ve been working with the

kindergartners each year and they don’t finish until June, so I’ll be

coming back on a weekly basis just to check in with them ... but I’m

finding that it’s been as much fun volunteering the last couple of

weeks as it is working here.

What’s been your favorite thing about working here?

It’s working with the kids. I’ve enjoyed that. When we got it, I

told my wife, “If you do the paperwork and I get to play with the

kids, we’ll do it.”

What are you going to do now that you’ll have this free time on

your hands?

I work here from 6:45 until 6 everyday, and a lot of the weekends,

so a lot of things that I should have been doing at home and other

places have gotten sort of behind, so I’m going to get caught up on

that.