Retirement

It’s Saturday, another day off! That’s really what retirement is like, lots of days off. It’s not very stimulating. My wife tells me ‘I need a hobby’. I’ve tried several hobbies. I wasn’t very good at any of them. I tried making jewelry. It all looked pretty much the same. I never got good at putting the clasps on. I discovered that without a clasp everything would fall apart. I gave away my jewelry kit.

I ventured into art. I had last flunked art in the 3rd grade. I thought maybe somehow I would have developed the artistic touch now that I’m older and wiser. I hadn’t. I learned art from a book I purchased when I was 10. You started out using squares and rectangles to begin your drawing. I liked cubes the best. My problem was that all my drawings looked like cubes. I made a horse. My horse was a series of cubes. It was my ‘cubest period’. That is how my niece, Mary described it. I was humiliated! I never progressed. It was even worse now. I couldn’t even make a cube. I quit.

I tried volunteering at our local hospital, but found most of the other volunteers were really boring and disorganized old people. The woman in charge of my volunteer group called a meeting. She had no concept of conducting a meeting. She had no agenda. She didn’t know what the purpose of the meeting was. A meeting she had called. I felt so bad for her I was afraid to walk out. By her age and feebleness I was afraid she’d ‘stroke out’. I actually tried to help her, but the people just stared at me. I found all of them clueless. They apparently liked the way she ‘ran a meeting’.

I keep telling myself I’ll never retire. But why is Monday thru Friday pretty much the same as weekends. I now call myself semi-retired. This is a nice way of saying I’m not really retired but I don’t have much to do today. I’m sorta like Seinfeld. I’m a show about nothing, but not nearly as funny. They say laughter is the best medicine. This is true. Now when I have a doctor’s appointment I chuckle and cancel it.

I find I count the days till I have something stimulating to do. I keep trying to move up the day we’ll leave for Florida. We don’t usually leave till mid January. The pre-planning is very important. Leaving for FL involves getting our 31 foot trailer out of storage and getting it checked over. It requires artful packing of supplies (food). You must triple check the list of clothing, grill, chairs, TV’s, radios, flashlights, chargers, phones, computer, wiring, truck maintenance, reading glasses, folding bike, ladders, hitch, tools, and this is only the beginning. I like to start planning just prior to Thanksgiving. That may seem a little early, but you’ll understand when YOU are semi-retired. Planning has become a hobby.

We like to set up for the winter in the Panhandle of Florida. Navarre, FL to be exact. The only problem with the Panhandle is that it isn’t really warm this time of year. For instance it’s 28 degrees here this morning. Navare is 32 degrees this morning. It doesn’t start warming up in the Panhandle till February. However, it never snows in the Panhandle. This is good because we never take a shovel.

My wife tells me not to complain. Many people have things a lot worse. This is probably true, but I try to avoid them. I don’t want to be depressed. I’m beginning to think complaining has become a hobby with me. I’m very good at it. I always say when you’re good at something, pursue it. I’m thinking of a book, The Art of Creative Complaining. I’ll let you know when it hits the bookstores.

Jim Doyle
Nov. 28, 2009