I saw an article recently that heralded the fact that you’re never too old to climb a mountain. It suggested that we pay too much attention to our age. Then it asked if we start to feel a bit low in the run-up to our birthdays or do we plan ahead for what we hope to accomplish in the coming year. Further, it suggested that the adage that we’re as young/old as we feel becomes more important to our overall wellbeing.

All of this got me thinking about Mount Taylor. This particular mountain was 70 miles from my home. Even on a cloudy day, I could see its profile on the horizon every time I stepped outside. It never occurred to me that I would climb to the top of it. That feat was not on any bucket list until friends related their experience of hiking to the 11,900 foot summit.

WHAT? You can hike to the top of it? Of course you can. There most likely isn’t a mountain in the continental U.S. with a summit that cannot be reached by an ordinary hike. Difficult maybe. Treacherous even, but it can be done.

So if you’re as old as you feel, and you’re feeling old, then of course you would reject the notion of climbing to the top of Mount Taylor. I wasn’t feeling old. I’m still going on hikes that are quite strenuous. Some have elevation gains of 2,000 feet or more. The Gooseberry Springs trail that leads to the Mt. Taylor summit is 6.33 miles in length and has an elevation gain of 2,126 feet. The Navajo refer to it as Turquoise Mountain and consider it one of the four sacred mountains. We stopped frequently to catch our breath and as we reached the bare slope of the summit the winds picked up significantly. On one switchback the wind helped us climb, but as we turned into the next switchback, it created fierce resistance. Stopping to rest, we saw a hiker below us climbing at a rate much faster than ours and gaining rapidly. Turns out she was a through hiker doing the Continental Divide Trail. In her 20s, she was in much better shape than us 70-year-olds but we all arrived at the summit about the same time.

It was a moment to savor and while we could admire the 20-year-old’s stamina, we took the time to congratulate ourselves for making the effort to climb to the top of an iconic peak. We were/are as young as we felt/feel.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

My son came to visit and said, “I have an idea for your eulogy.”

That was a bit off-putting, but I tried to stay calm. “What do you mean?” I said. “I’m not dying yet.”

“Of course you’re not,” he said. “I just want to be prepared. And I think I have a really good idea: Ten Things You Don’t Know About My Mother. We can work on it together.”

Actually, I know a couple of people who have written their own eulogies and they swear it’s a great way to help you to think about your life. And I had to admit, my son’s title was rather provocative. I immediately thought of two things people don’t know about me and I have no interest in informing anyone on the subject. I said not one word to my son.

But what is there about my life that I would want people to know? The people at my funeral, presumably friends and relatives, what don’t they know? That I have a hard copy of every article I’ve written for newspapers or magazines in two four-drawer file cabinets in my garage? We’re talking somewhere between 500 and 600 and nobody is going to want them. That although I have been a writer and teacher all my life I also have a degree in hotel management, from which I learned that I never want to manage a hotel? That I played girls’ basketball for one semester in college and I liked it and was pretty good at it. This would be remarkable to those at my funeral because, presumably, they would all know that my height is five feet, one inch. It turns out there’s a method for making baskets even if you are short and I learned how to do it. As long as you are not playing against super tall players who can jump up and just drop the ball in the basket, you’re good to go.

Or how about this: If I could have done anything in the world for a career I would have wanted to be a singer. Anyone who has heard me sing knows it all worked out for the best.

I’ve got a long way to go to complete the list. I wonder what my son is coming up with. But I recommend the exercise to anyone who wants the opportunity to look at themselves in a new light. And I’m sorry I won’t be able to hear the eulogy delivered.

Norma Libman is a journalist and lecturer who has been collecting women’s stories for more than twenty years. You can read the first chapter of her award-winning book, Lonely River Village, at NormaLibman.com.

 

 

I am not ready to retire.

No, that’s not right: I’m ready. I’m more than ready. I am not able.

I meant to be rich and famous someday. Or at least rich. Or at least not broke.

I joked about it — in 2010 I said I was disappointed to learn that the Mayan calendar had been mistranslated and that the world would not end in 2012 after all. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t.) But, see, I said I was rooting for the End of the World in 2012 because my credit cards would have just about maxed out by then.

In reality, I scrimped and saved and got my credit cards back under control (the last of my five kids finishing college helped a lot in this regard). But I’m not out of debt yet… and I’m not likely to ever be completely out of debt.

Actually, it turns out that reaching retirement age is in some ways like being a teenager all over again, except without the hormones (darn it): As my friends in high school all turned 16 and got their drivers’ licenses I wasn’t 16 yet and I was kind of envious because I wasn’t yet old enough. Now my friends are all retiring and I’m not quite old enough and I neglected to get a pension from anyone.

That was poor planning on my part.

This is the ‘second wave’ of retirements in my case: Some years back, when I was coaching at what I called Bluejay Park, a lot of my fellow coaches started turning 50. That may not strike you as a particularly important milestone. But most of these dads were City workers — cops mostly, but some firemen, at least one guy in the Department of Forestry) and they had their 30 years in with the City and were therefore eligible to retire and collect their full pensions. Many did retire. Most found other jobs, too, meaning they had some pretty good earning years while I was rooting for the Mayan prediction to be true.

I had a plan about how I was going to get a pension — lots of plans — none of them practical.

So I’m still here, still pursuing plans that are unlikely to bear real fruit. But I’m more at peace now with that. And I’m prepared to muddle through.

Come sit next to me on this bench in the Blogosphere. I’ll tell some stories, and maybe I’ll even make you smile.

Or piss you off. In 2021 I suppose that seemed more likely.

Curmudgeon is a self-described dinosaur — an Ozzie and Harriet person living in an Ozzy and Sharon world. And sometimes it confuses the heck out of him. He writes a very amusing blog at Second Effort.

 

 

Our kitchen remodeling project is behind schedule, but they finish up today, so everything should be good to go for Thanksgiving. We have missed cooking so much and can’t wait to crank it up again.

Of course, we’re going to have a nicer kitchen, but being miserable for close to five weeks motivated us to get serious about having fun. We are out of practice.

Dale and I don’t have a big urge to travel, especially long trips by air, and COVID did nothing to change our minds. Still, we’re feeling confident we can scoot around California with moderate risk. There are so many beautiful places to see here, and we’ve done a whole lot of nothing for two years.

As it is with kitchens and travel, everything costs money. I’ll start collecting Social Security in December, and that should help fund some adventures. Additionally, we’re starting to talk about monthly withdrawals from what used to be my 401K but is now an IRA.

Although I was good at building a solid 401K, I’m less skilled when I think about draining it. I have found it difficult to make the mental switch from saving to spending. However, I may be ready. Not too many people in my family die of old age, so I’d like to enjoy what’s there.

We talked with Bob, our financial planner, and he encouraged us to get started … operating under the theory you can’t take it with you. Bob suggested we go with 4-5 percent. Ideally, your returns match or outpace withdrawals, so you don’t touch your principal. But with this market, who knows?

As a childless couple, we do want to spend our principal … just not all at once. I like the idea of “die broke.” However, I would like to avoid being alive and broke. But if that’s how it goes down, hell, yes, I would take it.

My car is 11 years old and in good shape, but I see a new one on the horizon. So, it will be good to start socking away cash for that purchase. I’m hoping my car goes another couple of years so I can see how the electric market shakes out. I’d like to go electric or plug-in hybrid. Any recommendations?

The biggest hurdle is getting over a bad case of COVID caution. Breakthrough infections notwithstanding, we’re both fully vaccinated and boosted and will most likely be just fine. We can’t live in fear forever.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

 

Looking forward to hitting the road, any road, as the post pandemic travel frenzy has taken hold across the nation. All this talk of road trips reminded me of our family’s road trips, such as they were. You could not really call them road trips. More like Sunday drives where Dad had no idea where he was going or how we were getting back home. It would be more accurate to call them Lost Trips.

Picture this: the 1956 Ford in Forest Green; family of 6, Mom, Dad, 2 girls and 2 boys. One sister had a coffee can in her lap in order to address periodic car sickness. I don’t remember the exact configuration, but I’m guessing it was 3 in the front with oldest sister between Mom and Dad, and 3 in the back with next oldest sister and the 2 boys.

After traveling for some distance we would see signs announcing the number of miles to some town in New Hampshire, and since we had started out 2 states away, it was time for Dad to try to figure out how to get home. No point in consulting a map. He would just keep looking for highway markers that indicated the road went south. Sure enough, there was always a route that would take us back to the general vicinity of where we started.

My recollection (flawed as it must be) is that we hardly ever stopped, except perhaps to empty that coffee can. I also recall that it was dark when we arrived home. That means that these Lost Trips might have been in the 3 to 5 hour range. The only aspect of the trip that was adventurous was guessing how long it would take Dad to find a way home.

Maybe this sort of road trip is perfect for these not so safe times. No mask necessary if you never get out of the car. Cars are now equipped with DVD/video players installed in the back of the front seat headrests. The kids can watch the latest Disney flick while Dad motors up the Interstate. And no more getting lost, because there’s a map app right there in the dash. Put in your destination, in this case home, and get turn by turn instructions all the way back.

Yes, the adventure is gone and yes, it’s strange for the kids to each be watching their own movie, but the family is safe and somewhat together in their post-pandemic cocoon. Some day they might even be nostalgic for these times.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Have you been reading about The Great Resignation? Droves of people are quitting their jobs, much of it as a result of the pandemic. While lots of factors play into their decisions, including child care challenges, it sounds like workers have discovered the joys of a slower pace and aren’t going back until they find something with more balance.

You’ll notice I didn’t say work-life balance. In one job, I wrote talking points for the president of the company about his efforts to change the culture of the workplace. He asked me to “socialize” them with other executives, and one VP took issue with the term work-life balance. He said, and I quote, “Work is life.”

As for resigning, we get it, don’t we? One of the reasons I retired earlyish is because the rat race was wearing me out, too. But I was 62, and my husband and I had enough money saved to presumably last the rest of our lives. These are young people gambling with their futures … holding out until employers bend.

I’ve never understood why 40 hours a week isn’t enough. In my last job, you were expected to put in at least 50, preferably more. My boss had some sort of document readily accessible on her smartphone that could instantly tell her who was putting in the most unpaid overtime … and who wasn’t.

She would check on weekends to see if your Instant Messenger light was green, which usually meant you were online and working.

Granted, I was highly compensated, but my hourly rate was down there with fast food. Not really, but you like to think you’re paid more because you bring extra value, not because you are willing to give up having a life outside of work.

Fast food reminds me of a funny story.

We had just returned from working abroad, and I interviewed for a job at an insurance company in Columbia, S.C. They made an offer, and I countered.

I made more money than that at my last job working in Egypt.

Well, that was overseas. You can’t compare us to overseas.

I made more money than that when I lived in Alabama.

Well, that was aerospace. You can’t compare us to aerospace.

I accepted the job anyway, but when I later told the story to a coworker, he said his response would have been:

I made more money than that when I worked at Captain D’s.

Well, that was fast food. You can’t compare us to fast food.

That story still makes me laugh.

Anyway, I want the workers to find their bliss, but I can’t say I have much hope. I suspect they’ll enjoy some time off, run out of money and once again be at the mercy of the man.

It’s a tough predicament, and I have no love left for what’s become of the workplace, but I have some amazing memories and am still exceedingly grateful for all my experiences.

And the money. Oh, and retirement. Definitely retirement.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.