Little Jimmy, a buddy of mine who\u2019s almost exactly the same old age as me, was reflecting on what he\u2019d like to do when he retired. He\u2019s a glass artist \u2013 same as me \u2013 and so I know, even if he doesn\u2019t, the kind of retirement he\u2019s dreaming of is just that, a pipe dream. There\u2019s as much likelihood of golden years in a hammock beside a South Seas Lagoon as winning American Idol with a tin ear and laryngitis, but like most folks who gamble on a lottery ticket, the fantasy trumps mathematics.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the kind of guy who itemizes his day, schedules his week, plans itinerary into the coming months and can tell you, by rote, the exact steps he\u2019ll take into the coming years. I can no more imagine him poolside with a Cuba Libre beside his sunglasses on the cabana table slathered with tanning lotion reading a novel than I can see him winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Little Jimmy\u2019s a List Maker. An organized, tightly scheduled Planner. He knows far ahead what he needs to do not only this morning but the morning Tuesday first week, next month. He\u2019s the guy who made an outline before he wrote the essay in 12th grade history class and got an A+ with the teacher\u2019s comments: well organized. I don\u2019t need to look in his dish cabinet to know the bowls and glasses are neatly arranged by size and color. Chaos, to him, is MY cabinet, one step shy of disaster, mayhem and death.<\/p>\n
Little Jimmy pulls out a tape rule last visit and shows me 80 inches. \u201cSee that?\u201d I shrug in incomprehension. \u201cWhat\u2019re we measuring?\u201d I ask. \u201cTime left,\u201d Jimmy declares. \u201cIf I live to be 80, slightly longer than the average U.S. male \u2026 and I\u2019m 71 (he puts his finger at 5\u201911\u201d, then this is all you and me got left, buddy, 9 inches.\u201d He shakes his head sadly. \u201cTime\u2019s short now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike most of us and me in particular, Jimmy\u2019s hit the End of his Calendar. No more days no more months no more years. Just inches. He wants to get more done, he\u2019s got to speed up the Line, blow more glass, sell more stock, finish 2023 by 2022, squeeze into that retirement before the tape rule hits 80 inches. They say dogs don\u2019t understand death. I think dogs are like me — they get the idea, all right, they just don\u2019t carry a tape rule strapped to their collar. I guess we\u2019re a little too busy scratching fleas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Little Jimmy, a buddy of mine who\u2019s almost exactly the same old age as me, was reflecting on what he\u2019d like to do when he retired. He\u2019s a glass artist \u2013 same as me \u2013 and so I know, even if he doesn\u2019t, the kind of retirement he\u2019s dreaming of is just that, a pipe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[577,4290,4291],"class_list":["post-14910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","category-uncategorized","tag-golden-years","tag-life-expectancy-on-the-south-end","tag-surviving-covid-but-for-how-long"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14911,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14910\/revisions\/14911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}