He's learning to shop again, carry his own coat and drive. But cooking and parallel parking are challenges Citizen William Donald Schaefer says he's saving for another day.
Mr. Schaefer returned to Annapolis yesterday to testify before a legislative committee and afterward described his transition from political to civilian life as difficult but hardly dull.
Nearly a month after leaving the Governor's Mansion, he is tackling some of the day-to-day chores that cooks, chauffeurs and bodyguards took care of during his many years in public office.
"I'm driving," the 73-year-old Mr. Schaefer said yesterday, sounding a little like a teen-ager with a learner's permit. But "I haven't had any parallel parking yet. That's another thing I'm not looking forward to, learning how to park."
More enjoyable, he says, has been the warm reception he has received from residents since he left office. Without the responsibility of the state's highest political office, he seems more popular these days, he said.
"People are very, very nice, very, very friendly," he said. "Much different than when I was governor."
When Mr. Schaefer arrived at an Anne Arundel County restaurant recently, "everybody got up, came over, shook hands," he said. "If I'd have gone in as governor, nobody would've even looked up."
Mr. Schaefer received an equally warm response yesterday when he addressed the legislature's Joint Committee on Federal Relations.
In his testimony, he criticized proposed cuts in federal money for public broadcasting being pushed by Republicans on Capitol Hill. Mr. Schaefer, a Democrat, said the loss of federal funds would cut into Maryland Public Television's production of educational and environmental programs and would cost the state jobs.
Raymond K.K. Ho, MPT's president, said the broadcasting company would lose $5.5 million, 20 percent of its current $27.6 million budget, if federal funding was discontinued.
"Education would really suffer a severe loss," said Mr. Schaefer, looking over his shoulder at a group of second-grade students from Rockledge Elementary in Bowie who stood next to him in support of federal funding.
The former governor said he came to testify yesterday because he "got invited." He said Del. Peter Franchot, a friend and Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the committee, had asked him to come speak on behalf of a House of Delegates resolution calling for federal funding to continue at the current level.
Mr. Schaefer said he plans to return to Annapolis to testify on other issues close to his heart, including the budget, higher education and women's health. At the same time, he said he doesn't want to lobby or get in the way.
Mr. Schaefer said his changing responsibilities and new life hit him recently one morning when he woke up to find snow on the ground and immediately began thinking about contacting the National Guard and getting trucks out to clear the roads.
Then he realized it was somebody else's job.
"All I did was jump back in bed, roll over and say, 'Well, Glendening, good luck. Happy day. So long.' And went back to sleep."