Thoughts on retirement, and how to avoid it

Mr. "Mike at Night" Hendricks had some good thoughts in a recent column Mike was concerned for a retirement crisis where most people would run out of funds before their lives ran out. Could be but my question is why would they quit work in the first place? Like I tell people in my own case, I have retired five times and it has not "taken" yet.

Sixty five years of age seems to be most people's goal for quitting work. Well actually now it is more like sixty seven with the recent adjustments made to prolong the financial health of Social Security. Where in the world did that number come from anyway? Why not 70 or 72, maybe even 76 which works for me? No matter most people today are still healthy at age 65, fully capable of continuing to work as they have done for the past forty years. Quitting work, the usual goal of retirement, means leaving a pool of long time friends and associates. Reportedly many men tend to hibernate in their home, getting on their wive's nerves, and declining physically for lack of healthful exercise. In all too many cases retirement seems to shorten one's lifespan.

I am an advocate for continuing to do meaningful work as long as a person's mind and physical health enables. Change occupations if you are tired of your profession. Most of us have developed interests outside our regular employment. The paycheck and benefits may be smaller from pursuing those alternative occupations but it should keep one from dipping into their lifetime savings.

For the past year Grannie and I have been following blog posting from long-time College friend and his wife. We have kept in touch over our very separate Air Force Careers and the 30 years since. Clark went helicopters in the USAF. Assignments included a tour in Vietnam, test pilot school and flight testing the HH-53 "Giant Jolly Green Giant". They settled in the Albuquerque area after the Air Force. There they founded and ran a very successful cleaning and restoration business.

For the past 10 years plus, Clark and Reba have lived full time in a huge "diesel pusher" motor home. Over the years they have been intrigued with a grand adventure dream to drive the entire perimeter of the United States. The goal was to drive the road parallel to and closest to the border of Canada and Mexico and along the Pacific, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico shorelines. Reba has obviously strenuously researched each locale to be visited, sights to see and experience, which places to camp for a day or two or three, friends to visit, a myriad of detail. Imagine having mail forwarded to post offices in places you intend to visit and then pick up that mail. How do you find medical help along the way? They pulled a large enclosed trailer for their car to have practical transportation while parked.

Reba schooled herself in how to prepare an internet blog, complete with pictures, to share weekly postings with family, friends or anybody else interested. Our cost, nothing, just a chance to vicariously follow an interesting couple around the entire perimeter of the USofA. Well it turns out almost all the way around.

About this time last year Clark and Reba officially started the trip by driving straight south to the Mexican border at Tucson, Arizona where they turned right. Westward to San Diego and north up the Pacific Coastal Highways. No hurry, as they wanted the snow gone and warm weather by the time they reached the Canadian border. On east through the Rocky Mountains and out across the vast prairie. As they traversed the northern tier, there came a few complaints about highway construction, muddy detours and long stretches of nothing. (That is of course in the eye of the beholder, I personally love the huge vistas and miles and miles of open prairie and immense farms.)

They welcomed the north woods of New Hampshire and lonely stretches of Maine. After dipping their toes in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean they turned right and headed south ahead of cooling fall weather. Reba seems to have a love affair with light houses and I think took pictures of every one along the way.

The weather gods smiled on our friends and somehow they missed experiencing a hurricane blowing in off the Atlantic. Down the Florida Coast to Key West for a couple days of rain. Then back up along the Gulf of Mexico Coast of Florida and Louisiana to New Orleans.

In the birthplace of jazz, reality and the vicissitudes of many birthdays came to cast a burden. Both Clark and Reba were diagnosed with the Big C. She ovarian and he bladder. A conference call from their four adult children pushed the decision to abort the tour and come home to Albuquerque to convalesce.

The saga continues. The couple over the years have dabbled into a strong belief in what some call "alternative medicine." The several times they came to visit Clark always made a pitch to sell us a regimen of really special vitamins and other natural medicines. I always had the feeling that he was using his natural medicines as a business and writing off all or part of his travel expenses. Now they have elected to treat their cancers using "alternative treatments," whatever that is. So we'll see how that all works out. I pray for the best and may God bless them.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail