Retirement

Originally Written Between 2017-2020                          

When I was approaching retirement age, my mom gave me one piece of advice.  And that was:  “Don’t give up your car!”  To give you a little background, my parents were married in 1940.  They had one car.  They lived in Forest Lake and my dad was a bartender at the White Pine Inn in Bayport.  They lived only a couple of blocks from the grocery store, the post office, the hardware store, and the meat market; therefore, walking was the one mode of transportation that most wives used in those days.  There really wasn’t a need for two cars.

 

Dad had one rule, however.  If mom wanted to drive “HIS” car, she had to drive with the seat in the position set for my dad because he was not going to struggle getting into the car after mom had driven it.  Dad was 6’4”.  Mom was 5’4”.  She had to learn to drive with her big toe barely touching the gas pedal. 

 

Fast forward several years when the country had prospered and women worked outside the home – necessitating the need for two cars.  So, mom and dad had two cars.  Dad’s rule still was in effect, however, and she rarely drove his car.  Life was good.

 

When dad retired, however, he decided that they only needed one car.  The car he kept was – yes, you guess it! – HIS.  Mom was back to driving with her big toe again.  She also had to schedule her shopping, and visits to friends and relatives around whether the car was free or not.  Hence, her advice to me to keep my car when I retired.  I, of course, obeyed my mother and kept my car.  Thank you, mom!

 

I retired 10 years ago.  And you may ask what my advice would be to my children for when they retire?  Well, obviously – keep your car.  But, another piece of advice I’d like to pass on would be to “retire when you still love your job!”  There is a certain assumption that one loves their job.  I did love my job.  I had a wonderful boss who challenged me and rewarded me when I met each challenge.  He was fair and treated me as a colleague who worked WITH him as opposed to FOR him.  I had wonderful co-workers who I consider friends even ten years later.

 

I was lucky, I know.  My brother wasn’t so lucky.  I won’t mention the company but he started working after he got out of the navy and stayed until he retired.  It’s so sad.  He actually had a clock on his computer that counted down how many days he had left before he would retire.  He had great co-workers and I believe their friendship was one of the reasons he stayed those many years. 

 

I retired on a Friday.  The following Monday, Norm and I boarded an airplane and flew to Las Vegas for a vacation.  I’m not sure how long we were there – probably five days.  I purposely planned this vacation.  Why?  Well, I had trained in my replacement for one week prior to my last day.  She didn’t take many notes and that worried me.  I wanted the transition to go smoothly and really didn’t think it would since she didn’t seem to want to pay attention to how I did my job.  So – I booked the trip to Las Vegas so I wouldn’t be available to answer any questions she most certainly would have when left on her own.  Cell phones were not as readily available ten years ago.  Well, at least I didn’t have one.  Therefore, it would not be easy for my replacement to contact me to ask for advice or answer her questions.  I figured she would just have to figure things out by herself.  Or maybe read the pages and pages I wrote on how to do my job.

 

Funny thing, though.  When I returned from our trip, I found out that she never tried to call me with questions.  My ex-coworkers told me that she was doing fine.  What?  She didn’t call me?  She didn’t need me?  Well, I guess I can only believe that she evidently was paying attention during my training and obviously read my written instructions.  

 

It’s been ten years.  My boss retired.  My replacement got married, had two babies and quit.  Most of my co-workers have moved on to other departments, other companies, or retired themselves.  Only four friends remain and a couple of them have plans to retire in a year or so.  We keep in touch and get together for birthday lunches.  Life is still good.