I love naps. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a napping family. My grocer father, my farming uncles and spouses, all took regular siestas after lunch. And if we kids didn’t think we needed one, we had better be quiet while the adults did because discipline was both immediate and painful. Charlotte and I […]
Yesterday began early. We were moving boxes at 7:30—hang-up clothes from the storage unit to my sister-in-law’s place—so we can get to them more easily. Then Charlotte was off to yoga while I made my first visit to the house site. After that, I had calls to make—cancel all the utilities for next week, and […]
Career-change expert Richard Bolles (What Color is Your Parachute has sold 10 million copies) doesn’t like the term retirement because it implies “being put out to pasture.” I don’t like it either, but for a different reason. It defines me by who I was, not who I am. When I started teaching in the 90s, […]
Movers will be here today to take our furniture to a storage unit where it will sit until the new place is ready. So tonight Char and I will sleep on a mattress in the living room of an empty house. We’ve done this before (if you see a trend here, it seems we seniors […]
It’s a Claude High School letter jacket worn by my wife in 1966 when the Lady Mustangs were Bi-District Champs. And it’s the reason we’re arguing. She wants to throw it away. “I don’t need it, and our kids won’t want it,” she says. “But it’s history,” I say. “One day a little girl will […]
I felt alone, anxious and a little hopeful. It was 1995, and I was preparing for a new career by attending grad school at Texas Tech. I can still remember my first walk across campus. Did I belong there? Could I succeed as a Ph.D. student? Or was I making a horrible mistake? Maybe I […]
Have spent the last several evenings sitting on the front porch of our unfinished home. We look out on a small canyon, which in the evenings is visited by occasional mule deer and wild turkey. It’s much quieter than town, but one can hear train whistles in the distance (always a comforting sound to me) […]
The Old Testament character Abraham was 75 years old when the Lord called him to move to a land he had never visited. He went, sight unseen. And Abraham was 100 when he finally received the promised heir through whom he would become the “father of many nations.” A year earlier he had laughed at […]
Most retirement books are depressing. OK, it’s a first impression. I’ve made it through eight (I intend to read 20 or more and will give you a thorough report later). With titles like How to Retire with Enough Money and the AARP Retirement Survival Guide, most have the same premise. Money brings happiness, and you’ll […]
Spent the evening packing memories. They came in file cabinets full of letters, legal documents, instructions, and pictures/drawings mostly of/from children and grandchildren. My job was to make six drawers of material in the old home fit into three in the new one. Wasn’t hard. I save way too much insignificant stuff—a copy of my […]