The first full year of transition into retirement.
The first few mornings I came to my computer at the
early rush hour and looked out my window to the busy thoroughfare on
which I live. There were the lines of cars and buses,
with passengers in suits and office apparel. I laughed.
“Suckers!”
I
had first gone to work as an adult, with the end of a working life
nowhere in sight — nay, unthinkable! — in 1975. I just added it up:
forty-two years, longer than my older son has been alive.
My working life finished Dec. 29, 2017, with no working days left, so January to January is a fair measure of being retired rather than on a weekend.
I first came to retirement with a project and a schedule in mind: a blog I would turn into a book — check that as done — and a plan to walk the 8 blocks to a nearby library with my laptop in a new backpack. There I would edit my work and do some net surfing thanks to taxpayers like me, who delight in paying taxes so long as they go to schools and libraries and such.
Oh, I was also going to go room by room, one a month, chucking all the useless stuff I never had the time to sift from the treasures, then reorganizing the latter in an orderly way.
Those were the best laid plans of mice and men ...
I did complete the blogbook and published it as an ebook in November. You can read about it here Discover How a Faith Became Christianity — Even if You Skipped Sunday School and learn where to get it. (Hint: Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, other places.)
My walking to the library fell off somewhat.
Instead I gained a volunteer gig at a place called Samaritan Ministry, where I now help folks write their resumes and apply for jobs online.
My cleanup of my home stopped at my study in the third month, having done what could be done to the bedroom and bathroom.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Last Times
(A year ago, I wrote the following to myself.)
In the past year or so, I have had the rare and bittersweet pleasure of observing myself do or experience a variety of things for the last time. It has been a season of last things that ended today as I left my final employment, my office and the company I owned for the last time ever.
How often do you get to observe this? When was the last time you changed your child's diaper, hugged a deceased parent, made love to your last lover? Most often we don’t realize it’s the last time.
When last December ended, however, I suddenly realized that it was only a matter of months before I retired. That January and February, with that bitter wind on the walk to the bust stop five blocks away, was happening to me for the last time.
March I filed my last corporate tax return. I’d surrendered to my successor a number of editorial and production tasks and decision making. This year I would slowly surrender corporate operations. I have been a business owner since 1997. By year’s end, no more.
May I had my last board meeting in that season. July I took my last short vacation. When you are the boss, you’re always in. In November, I extended banking privileges to my successor, along with running the payroll.
Then came the inevitable last month.
Dec. 14 I put to bed the last issue of my weekly publication that I would have a hand producing. It would be the last issue before the Christmas break. It was my 1,525th issue.
“Putting to bed” is a journalism expression meaning to complete all editorial and layout work on a newspaper or magazine so that it is ready to go to press; it comes from an old printing phrase to lock up the type form of a publication in the press’ bed, before printing. My publication hasn’t been printed since 2006, but I was still putting it to bed on this day two weeks ago.
On Dec. 15th, I last saw my favorite luncheon checker, with whom I played the game of trying to find out what happened on the year matching the amount due; for example, if the lunch cost $14.92, the year was 1492, the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Dec. 19, I last saw my favorite street person outside the luncheon place I go pick up something to eat at my desk. We exchanged the daily refrain. His was “What’s the word? Thunderbird!” For that he got my ritual $5 “tip.”
On Dec. 22, I finished writing the last story I would ever write for my publication, no longer under my byline (just as the first one didn’t have my byline, both for institutional reasons).
In the past year or so, I have had the rare and bittersweet pleasure of observing myself do or experience a variety of things for the last time. It has been a season of last things that ended today as I left my final employment, my office and the company I owned for the last time ever.
How often do you get to observe this? When was the last time you changed your child's diaper, hugged a deceased parent, made love to your last lover? Most often we don’t realize it’s the last time.
When last December ended, however, I suddenly realized that it was only a matter of months before I retired. That January and February, with that bitter wind on the walk to the bust stop five blocks away, was happening to me for the last time.
March I filed my last corporate tax return. I’d surrendered to my successor a number of editorial and production tasks and decision making. This year I would slowly surrender corporate operations. I have been a business owner since 1997. By year’s end, no more.
May I had my last board meeting in that season. July I took my last short vacation. When you are the boss, you’re always in. In November, I extended banking privileges to my successor, along with running the payroll.
Then came the inevitable last month.
Dec. 14 I put to bed the last issue of my weekly publication that I would have a hand producing. It would be the last issue before the Christmas break. It was my 1,525th issue.
“Putting to bed” is a journalism expression meaning to complete all editorial and layout work on a newspaper or magazine so that it is ready to go to press; it comes from an old printing phrase to lock up the type form of a publication in the press’ bed, before printing. My publication hasn’t been printed since 2006, but I was still putting it to bed on this day two weeks ago.
On Dec. 15th, I last saw my favorite luncheon checker, with whom I played the game of trying to find out what happened on the year matching the amount due; for example, if the lunch cost $14.92, the year was 1492, the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Dec. 19, I last saw my favorite street person outside the luncheon place I go pick up something to eat at my desk. We exchanged the daily refrain. His was “What’s the word? Thunderbird!” For that he got my ritual $5 “tip.”
On Dec. 22, I finished writing the last story I would ever write for my publication, no longer under my byline (just as the first one didn’t have my byline, both for institutional reasons).
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