“. . .being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity. . .”

27 calendar days, 19 working days until January 31, 2012, 59.5 years old, retirement, ”. . .being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity. . .” — Rip Van Winkle.

This is both exciting and terrifying.  It may be the best thing I’ve ever done, or the stupidest move I’ve ever made.  Most likely it’s somewhere on the continuum between those extremes.  I hope it’s closer to the “best” extreme, not the “stupid” extreme.  I expect it will drift back and forth at times.

Most of my life I’ve organized my days around what parents, teachers, or employers wanted me to do.  There was a short time in the early ’70s when I just let go, when I did whatever I wanted.  What I wanted then consisted of sleeping until noon, eating meals someone else prepared for me, watching TV, reading books I wanted to read, engaging in the sexual revolution, partying until I collapsed, then doing it all over again the next day.  That pretty much sums up my last two semesters of college.  I stopped going to classes after the first week and lived like I was at some cut-rate Midwestern Club Med (Club Ed?) where the meals consisted of cheap hamburgers and spaghetti, the unairconditioned rooms had uncomfortable single beds, and the beaches were abandoned gravel pits.

After I nose-dived out of the educational system I had intermittent periods of joyful idleness between jobs when I was living in Ames and Des Moines.  I was sharing houses with friends, playing Risk until 7 AM, sleeping ’til 3 PM, getting up and going to get pancakes at Sambo’s (a restaurant chain destroyed by its politically incorrect name), engaging in the sexual revolution, partying until I collapsed, then doing it all over again the next day.  I’d work at a crappy job until I got bored or couldn’t stand the conditions anymore, quit, and take a month or so off.  When the money ran out or I got tired of doing nothing, which fortunately always seemed to happen about the same time, I’d get another crappy job in a fast food joint, a slaughterhouse, or someplace equally smelly, dirty, and unpleasant.

A common factor in these experiences was the knowledge that what I was doing was not only incredibly irresponsible but completely unsustainable.  Two things brought me out of this spiral: the Good Job and the Good Woman.  The Good Job was at Rockwell.  It didn’t smell bad, it didn’t get me dirty, and it was interesting work.  The Good Woman was Nan, someone I didn’t (and still don’t) want to disappoint.  The end result was 37 years of work I could be proud of with Rockwell/Boeing, a benefit package that no longer exists for people starting with the company today, and savings fed by both of us but nurtured by Nan.  In theory, idleness should now be fiscally sustainable.  But is it still irresponsible?  And what of emotional sustainability?

The knee-jerk reaction of some people who hear me say I’m about to retire is, “Boring!”  Some of this is no doubt due to my flip response when asked what I’m going to do afterwards, “Sleep ’til I’m hungry and eat ’til I’m tired.”  But even without that, plenty of people think life without employment or work is meaningless.  To some extent, I agree.  As always, it depends on how the terms are defined, in this case “employment” and “work.”

This may come as a shock to those who know me, but all my life I’ve loved hard work and learning.  My personal tragedy is that the things I’ve been interested in learning and working at have rarely coincided with the things my parents, teachers, and employers have wanted me to learn and work at.  I view retirement not as a chance to do nothing, but as a chance to do what I want to do when I want to do it.  Some days that may involve sleeping ’til I’m hungry and eating ’til I’m tired.  But I expect those days will be the exception, not the rule.  We’ll see.  At any rate, I can’t sleep much past 9 AM any more, the sexual revolution has been won (and we’re living with the consequences, good and bad), and partying every night has gotten boring.

I have a pretty good idea of how I’m going to be employed.  It won’t involve a paycheck, however.

I have several writing projects under way.  I’m going to look for yoga and/or tai chi classes.  I’m going to sit zazen again for a while and see where that goes.  I’m going to walk (there will be a carrot, not a stick).  I’m going to learn to cook gumbo and braciole and I will master the frying of potatoes.

It’s going to be interesting.

I think.

- Poppa

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